I have always said "politics poisons everything" (my twist on the famous line about religion from Hitchens).
So often, when hanging with friends and family, if the topic turns to politics you can immediately feel the change in the vibe in the room, even if everyone is ideologically aligned, there is a tension there. It just 'feels' bad. There is a reason for that - political discourse is 'meant to feel bad', it is designed intentionally to divide and demoralize the general population; any system that does that intentionally is a deeply flawed and unworthy system.
I find myself disengaging more and more whenever politics comes up, I just remove myself from the conversation, not because I have no opinion, but because I know that sharing it is pointless; you are either preaching to the choir or talking to a brick wall.
The most important lesson I learned from being on the losing end of Narcissistic abuse, is that the only way to win is not to play. When you start to see government as what it is - Narcissism writ large - you learn that the only way to fight is to stop participating in the madness. More can be accomplished by NOT DOING than doing.
Government depends on us being engaged and wrapped up in their narrative. What if they held an election and no body came?
Imagine that. The ultimate vote of no confidence.
Protests are a pressure release valve they allow the populace so that the pressure never builds to any real action, and voting allows us the illusion of choice yet the same game continues. I'm convinced that elections do nothing except allow the new guy to point fingers at the old guy so people stay distracted and nothing good gets done.
Is it wrong not to want to participate in abuse anymore? No. It's sane. Welcome to sanity. I believe the best we can do is live lives worthy of emulation. Be shining examples on a hill of how happiness looks, however long it lasts before "they" try and take it away. You have to choose your battles, ultimately. Mine starts at my front gate. There's where I start fighting.
Is that selfish? Some would say so. But I've been studying politics and the twisted rabbit hole from which it emanates for decades and it has made my life no richer. That's not to say that it's better to choose ignorance, though. If you're standing in a highway, for example, would you rather be facing traffic or have your back to traffic? Obviously face the traffic. Always be aware of what direction things are headed, but build your life in a way that reminds people WHY freedom is important.
I used to obsess about the evils of the world, I think, because I felt powerless to change anything outside myself while still being subject to it (like being in an abusive relationship). We walked away (as much as we could) in 2020, went off grid and are becoming more self-sufficient. It feels good to take our power back (literally and figuratively!). I doubt we’ll ever be 100% self-reliant but we’re in good shape, come what may.
We really are in a battle here. They say collapse happens little by little then all at once. We’re in the little by little stage. Once we hit the “all at once stage”, people will regret all the time they spent rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Ultimately, there needs to be enough of us that have the knowledge of natural law. Which involves the knowledge that authority is evil and morally illegitimate.
We won't get free just by not playing their game. The cult of order followers will do shears do their dirty work. There has to be an aggregate increase in objective morality to acheive freedom.
The law of freedom: As morality increases in the aggregate, freedom increases in the aggregate.
It is the knowledge of what governs behavioural consequence that is the key to dismantling tyranny.
Yes this is it in a nut shell. This is why government need to facilitate moral decay. Because as people grow less moral they are easier to govern. Its why government violates all manor of natural law. It murder, (war), Theft (taxes), Trespass ( privacy violations, and lies. But its not enough that it does it. The real trick is that it gets us to go along with all this. It makes us complicit and then we are easily enslaved. Not to be hyperbolic but its all quite demonic.
It a Pinocchio dilemma. We either engage in self mastery or become a puppet for people nefarious enough to use people as puppets.
Are you familiar with Mark Passio's work. He goes deep into all this. He's probably too abrasive for most people but I think he really makes a good case that morality and freedom are inseparatable.
"We either engage in self mastery or become a puppet for people nefarious enough to use people as puppets."
—🔥
"Are you familiar with Mark Passio's work."
—Yes I am. I have probably listened to about five or six hours of him at this point. Enough to know that he is solid on natural law. And yeah, he is abrasive, but so was Ayn Rand, and look at the good she has done. I can look past it :-)
"morality and freedom are inseparatable"
—I agree with this concept. But as sure as I am about the axioms of natural law, I meet people over and over who are not convinced by them. We have to reach them too, but they require a different starting point!
Yes this is actually something the left does really well. They have a hundred ways to enter there idolatry
Libertarians are getting better at this. For a long time though if you couldn’t quote muses or were in love with Rand you were just seen as hopeless
I’m all for spreading liberty by any (non violent) means necessary
For me it comes down to natural claw and constant philosophical principles. Most people are more pragmatic though. It doesn’t matter almost all people live according to natural law they just haven’t intellectualized it
It just getting people to understand bthere no exceptions even if you call yourself government
Agreed, but how can a society that does not allow natural consequences ever hope to have a moral populace? There are indeed too many order followers and there is too little care.
Right you are. George Washington's farewell speech (whoever wrote it) was right on the money: Government is force. To pursue politics is to pursue taking wealth from people who have earned it, and passing it out to the well-connected (with a little for yourself, of course! Running the world is SO tiring and expensive). There is a crazed kind of pleasure in such games, I'm sure, but genuine contentment lies elsewhere, in a life that mixes productive work with do-whatever-you-like leisure, and embraces voluntary interactions over coerced ones.
"People who work in politics often complain that they struggle to get followers and attention. A political book—even a profound, well-written one—is considered a success if it sells five thousand copies. Meanwhile, books on so-called “pointless subjects” sell millions." It's exactly the opposite on Substack, though. Those who write exclusively about politics attract huge numbers of subscribers, while those who write about many aspects of life hardly get noticed.
The Founders first work around was "Pursuit of Happiness", the originational John Lock statement was: "Life, Liberty, Estate", estate being the old English word for land, but the 55 landed white guys in that court house were not going to share the land stolen from the native Americans, which brings us to the next work around, the US Constitution, Madison, the principal framer did away with democracy so that the landless couldn't redistribute wealth (Land)
The old cartoon of a donkey with a stick strapped to its head with a string tied to the end having a carrot tied to it dangling in front of him just out of reach, that is how I picture the pursuit of happiness. As I entered adolescence, the carrot was sex. Throughout my life a series of other carrots have been fruitlessly pursued. Life has been a recurring personification of Peggy Lee's plaintive 1969 heartache, "Is that all there is?" On and off I have nibbled at whatever carrot with which have been teased. Now I am an elder statesman of a donkey beginning to realize, "Yes, Peggy, that is all that there is." Janis sang it best, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."
But instead of seeing it as a carrot tied to a stick—something put there by an external force to tease us and keep us marching on, why not see it as a series of joys to revel in and games to play?
My wife and I were just talking about this. There are definitely biological predispositions, and they are harder to get around. But that just means they require more effort—it does not mean that getting around them is impossible or not worth the attempt.
I agree. It would be worth the attempt--if I have sufficient time and energy left. Whoever said old age is the golden years was either uncomprehending or young.
I stopped voting, partly because it kind of makes me sick, and partly because I don't believe it's real-- I think it's a trick. And it's a great way to keep us divided.
I'd like to just live my life, without a bunch RULES laid on me by a bunch of rich narcissists who are primarily interested in amassing wealth and power, not in my well-being. They don't even KNOW me. If I have to have ANY kind of BOSS type, forcing me to have a license for every damn thing I ever do, then I want it LOCAL, and ONLY local. Anarchy seems like the best idea so far. Democracy, is, as far as I can tell, exactly what you described above: A trick.
They think we want power over them. We don't. We just want to live!
I don't want to wrote about this stuff every day. I want to talk to bees and watch toddlers chase chickens. I do this because humanity needs to be free—not because I get off on it or want power.
You sound like me. Good job!! LOL I am soooo enraged and soooo resentful, and it’s not healthy, so I spend a lot of time mitigating and working on my spiritual self-consoling. Cheers, m’dear, I really like your writing.
There is a better way than politics, and technology that didn't exist in 1776 is making it possible. Decentralized consent-based governance is already starting to happen. Free cities allow people to choose the rules they live under because they can vote with their feet, going where they are treated best. There is nothing governments do better than free markets, including governance. Without political favors, companies must please their customers or go out of business.
"There is nothing governments do better than free markets, including governance."
—Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who still do not see how this could possibly be possible…as is evidenced by the polite debate I am having with another elsewhere in this thread.
If you think decoupage following is impressive you should see power washing driveways. I think people are happy to ignore politics until it touches them. In my case we are still $300 a week worse off than we were in 2020 because of politicians and the idiots who believed them. We don't get a new system by ignoring the old one, losing our real power (money and land) day by day. The unconstrained view of humanity is fine on a micro scale, let's all non violent communicate to new levels of closeness, but these people, the government, they will let go of their power when we wrest it from their cold dead hands and not before.
Yes, the power-mad are a nasty lot. Though it is also possible that their power can collapse, leaving a window for us to escape.
Ultimately, escape is the solution. The old model—one system gets forced upon everyone in a given space—must end. It's a recipe for endless strife. Ultimately, we need to move to something panarchic.
That’s an interesting thought experiment. Do you think we would descend into a Mad Max dystopia or something similar to now but with different incentives?
Good question. I think market solutions would arise to provide justice and security, just like market solutions arise to meet every other need.
But even if they didn’t (they would, but even if not), think of the alternative. Governments slaughtered 400 million in just the 20th century. In their absence, and in the absence of any market solutions, you would have people defending themselves, or each other in small groups. Even in a worst-case Mad Max scenario, you would not be able to match the death toll of governments. Governments can tax, print money, and conscript soldiers. And they have incentives to wage wars that do not exist in their absence. The Lord Humongous has no such ability.
Haha, yeah, we’d definitely see lower taxes and fewer national wars, but the trade-off would be a chaotic scramble for resources, where the few at the top would dominate and the weak would be left to fend for themselves. Public services like fire departments and libraries would collapse, and knowledge would be hoarded by an elite few in ivory towers. Society would break down into smaller, more tribal groups, fighting over which ideology is king. The loss of life would likely be far worse than in any war, and people would constantly be stuck in survival mode, reacting based on raw, animal instincts. In the end, humanity would regress, becoming more isolated and less cooperative.
That is a common assumption. However, there are a number of problems with it.
Libraries and fire departments used to be private, and they worked fine. Roads used to be private. Even putatively nonrivalrous, nonexcludable “public goods” like lighthouses used to be private, and they worked fine.
Why would knowledge be hoarded? The internet exists now, and that is almost entirely a private phenomenon. Information has never been more democratized.
Private law societies (where justice and security were provided by private courts and security agencies) have existed in the past, and they worked fine. And those did not have the benefits of modern methods and technologies the way we have now.
And what we have now is a scenario in which a few dominate and exploit the many. And I think you really underestimate how hard “warlords” would have to work to slaughter 400 million people. That is A LOT of people.
Again, this “without government, we would have chaos” assumption is quite common, but it isn’t really borne out by the facts. It also requires that we pretend that government is something that it is not…it requires that we argue from some sanitized brochure version of government, rather than the reality.
I understand that what I am saying probably seems new. But if you dig in to the corpus of writing on the subject, I think you would be pleasantly surprised.
There are a lot of ways to approach this, but here’s the main point: without a currency system, we’d be stuck with bartering, which is inefficient and impractical for a society on a large scale. This would lead to widespread cheating and dishonesty, as there’d be no consistent standard of exchange. Without regular salaries or other incentives, most people would only be motivated to work for basic survival, leaving little room for innovation or progress.
With fewer people working in essential services, systems like the internet would collapse. There wouldn’t be enough people maintaining it, let alone advancing it. Disputes between people would likely be resolved through violence, as there would be no system to fairly manage conflict or enforce justice.
In such a system, the flow of information would be severely restricted, making education harder to access. Fewer resources would be produced overall, and without proper systems in place to manage health, diseases would spread more easily. Ultimately, many people would suffer, and the lack of infrastructure would lead to unnecessary loss of life.
You can never get to the end of politics. It is an undefined mish-mash of one-upmanship and a battle of arrogance and egos. There are NEVER any winners in this sordid game of stupidity. Government in any form = pure misery.
> And nobody wins in a democracy. Nobody wins, and there is never any end to the fighting.
I'll quibble with you there. Lots of people win in democracy, and in monarchy, and in oligarchy, etc.
Human action happens -- even that which is violent -- because humans perceive an advantage to doing it. Systemic, persistent human arrangements like government exist because there is a perceived advantage for many, and also an actual advantage to doing it (hence people keep doing it). Nancy Pelosi and J.D. Vance win at democracy. So do their enthusiastic supporters.
Folks like you and I have to show people that there are better, more humane advantages to seek and to win than the imposed order and control aimed for by government pursuits. But I think we have to acknowledge that people clearly win at government and that government works for what many people are targeting as their ends; that's why it persists.
The permanent bureaucracy and ruling class win. Their dependents win. Point taken.
I am speaking mostly to the liberty movement—to the people who argue that we have to “fight fight fight” within the democratic system. Nobody who wants to be free will ever win with that approach. They need to fight to end (or escape) that system.
I have always said "politics poisons everything" (my twist on the famous line about religion from Hitchens).
So often, when hanging with friends and family, if the topic turns to politics you can immediately feel the change in the vibe in the room, even if everyone is ideologically aligned, there is a tension there. It just 'feels' bad. There is a reason for that - political discourse is 'meant to feel bad', it is designed intentionally to divide and demoralize the general population; any system that does that intentionally is a deeply flawed and unworthy system.
I find myself disengaging more and more whenever politics comes up, I just remove myself from the conversation, not because I have no opinion, but because I know that sharing it is pointless; you are either preaching to the choir or talking to a brick wall.
Sharing!
The most important lesson I learned from being on the losing end of Narcissistic abuse, is that the only way to win is not to play. When you start to see government as what it is - Narcissism writ large - you learn that the only way to fight is to stop participating in the madness. More can be accomplished by NOT DOING than doing.
Government depends on us being engaged and wrapped up in their narrative. What if they held an election and no body came?
Imagine that. The ultimate vote of no confidence.
Protests are a pressure release valve they allow the populace so that the pressure never builds to any real action, and voting allows us the illusion of choice yet the same game continues. I'm convinced that elections do nothing except allow the new guy to point fingers at the old guy so people stay distracted and nothing good gets done.
Is it wrong not to want to participate in abuse anymore? No. It's sane. Welcome to sanity. I believe the best we can do is live lives worthy of emulation. Be shining examples on a hill of how happiness looks, however long it lasts before "they" try and take it away. You have to choose your battles, ultimately. Mine starts at my front gate. There's where I start fighting.
Is that selfish? Some would say so. But I've been studying politics and the twisted rabbit hole from which it emanates for decades and it has made my life no richer. That's not to say that it's better to choose ignorance, though. If you're standing in a highway, for example, would you rather be facing traffic or have your back to traffic? Obviously face the traffic. Always be aware of what direction things are headed, but build your life in a way that reminds people WHY freedom is important.
And watch your back.
You nailed it.
I used to obsess about the evils of the world, I think, because I felt powerless to change anything outside myself while still being subject to it (like being in an abusive relationship). We walked away (as much as we could) in 2020, went off grid and are becoming more self-sufficient. It feels good to take our power back (literally and figuratively!). I doubt we’ll ever be 100% self-reliant but we’re in good shape, come what may.
We really are in a battle here. They say collapse happens little by little then all at once. We’re in the little by little stage. Once we hit the “all at once stage”, people will regret all the time they spent rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Again, very well said. Taking power back, being a bit more self-reliant…excellent goals.
Ultimately, there needs to be enough of us that have the knowledge of natural law. Which involves the knowledge that authority is evil and morally illegitimate.
We won't get free just by not playing their game. The cult of order followers will do shears do their dirty work. There has to be an aggregate increase in objective morality to acheive freedom.
The law of freedom: As morality increases in the aggregate, freedom increases in the aggregate.
It is the knowledge of what governs behavioural consequence that is the key to dismantling tyranny.
Yes this is it in a nut shell. This is why government need to facilitate moral decay. Because as people grow less moral they are easier to govern. Its why government violates all manor of natural law. It murder, (war), Theft (taxes), Trespass ( privacy violations, and lies. But its not enough that it does it. The real trick is that it gets us to go along with all this. It makes us complicit and then we are easily enslaved. Not to be hyperbolic but its all quite demonic.
Let's play with this a bit…
People who are degenerate need to be governed.
People without a moral foundation must be given a foundation of force.
People who are not in control of themselves must be controlled from without.
———
People with a moral foundation do not need to be given one from outside.
People who are in control of themselves do not require external control.
People who are civil and polite do not need to be told how to behave.
Maybe not the best wording (I just woke up!) but it's a start. What do you think—what else can we add to this?
It a Pinocchio dilemma. We either engage in self mastery or become a puppet for people nefarious enough to use people as puppets.
Are you familiar with Mark Passio's work. He goes deep into all this. He's probably too abrasive for most people but I think he really makes a good case that morality and freedom are inseparatable.
"We either engage in self mastery or become a puppet for people nefarious enough to use people as puppets."
—🔥
"Are you familiar with Mark Passio's work."
—Yes I am. I have probably listened to about five or six hours of him at this point. Enough to know that he is solid on natural law. And yeah, he is abrasive, but so was Ayn Rand, and look at the good she has done. I can look past it :-)
"morality and freedom are inseparatable"
—I agree with this concept. But as sure as I am about the axioms of natural law, I meet people over and over who are not convinced by them. We have to reach them too, but they require a different starting point!
Mark Passio has done some phenomenal work. He's spot on that there's "too little care" in our society. Most people don't see past their own noses.
Yes this is actually something the left does really well. They have a hundred ways to enter there idolatry
Libertarians are getting better at this. For a long time though if you couldn’t quote muses or were in love with Rand you were just seen as hopeless
I’m all for spreading liberty by any (non violent) means necessary
For me it comes down to natural claw and constant philosophical principles. Most people are more pragmatic though. It doesn’t matter almost all people live according to natural law they just haven’t intellectualized it
It just getting people to understand bthere no exceptions even if you call yourself government
Agreed, but how can a society that does not allow natural consequences ever hope to have a moral populace? There are indeed too many order followers and there is too little care.
The natural consequences are all around us. The human condition of slavery.
And it will only get worse if enough of us don't start teaching natural law and how it effects us all.
Democracy is mob rule, and nothing more.
And if the authorities are smart, they will make it a binary equation always teetering at right around 50 percent.
That way, it takes the smallest amount of propaganda, (or outright cheating) to always have the democracy fall in the favor of those who rule.
Nice work if you can get it.
Welcome to the United States.
Right on.
Right you are. George Washington's farewell speech (whoever wrote it) was right on the money: Government is force. To pursue politics is to pursue taking wealth from people who have earned it, and passing it out to the well-connected (with a little for yourself, of course! Running the world is SO tiring and expensive). There is a crazed kind of pleasure in such games, I'm sure, but genuine contentment lies elsewhere, in a life that mixes productive work with do-whatever-you-like leisure, and embraces voluntary interactions over coerced ones.
Let's make it so!
"People who work in politics often complain that they struggle to get followers and attention. A political book—even a profound, well-written one—is considered a success if it sells five thousand copies. Meanwhile, books on so-called “pointless subjects” sell millions." It's exactly the opposite on Substack, though. Those who write exclusively about politics attract huge numbers of subscribers, while those who write about many aspects of life hardly get noticed.
Interesting. Presumably the audience on Substack skews heavily political in comparison to the general public…
Politics is a exercise in futility
Yes, that is a good way to put it.
The Founders first work around was "Pursuit of Happiness", the originational John Lock statement was: "Life, Liberty, Estate", estate being the old English word for land, but the 55 landed white guys in that court house were not going to share the land stolen from the native Americans, which brings us to the next work around, the US Constitution, Madison, the principal framer did away with democracy so that the landless couldn't redistribute wealth (Land)
Oh man. This is deep. Is there any documentation or signs to back up the notion that that was their true reasoning?
I'm finally able to post almost 24 hours later Christopher.
Great article and I fully agree!
Have you mentioned your issues to support?
Not yet, but I will over the weekend.
If you can get it escalated past the AI, they can be pretty helpful.
I understand.
In our company one of the most frustrating roles is dealing with and getting past Ai to solve a problem with a big company.
The old cartoon of a donkey with a stick strapped to its head with a string tied to the end having a carrot tied to it dangling in front of him just out of reach, that is how I picture the pursuit of happiness. As I entered adolescence, the carrot was sex. Throughout my life a series of other carrots have been fruitlessly pursued. Life has been a recurring personification of Peggy Lee's plaintive 1969 heartache, "Is that all there is?" On and off I have nibbled at whatever carrot with which have been teased. Now I am an elder statesman of a donkey beginning to realize, "Yes, Peggy, that is all that there is." Janis sang it best, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."
But instead of seeing it as a carrot tied to a stick—something put there by an external force to tease us and keep us marching on, why not see it as a series of joys to revel in and games to play?
Yes. I am by nature a pessimist. Hard to get over tat.
My wife and I were just talking about this. There are definitely biological predispositions, and they are harder to get around. But that just means they require more effort—it does not mean that getting around them is impossible or not worth the attempt.
Or so we concluded 🤣
I agree. It would be worth the attempt--if I have sufficient time and energy left. Whoever said old age is the golden years was either uncomprehending or young.
I feel you!
I stopped voting, partly because it kind of makes me sick, and partly because I don't believe it's real-- I think it's a trick. And it's a great way to keep us divided.
I'd like to just live my life, without a bunch RULES laid on me by a bunch of rich narcissists who are primarily interested in amassing wealth and power, not in my well-being. They don't even KNOW me. If I have to have ANY kind of BOSS type, forcing me to have a license for every damn thing I ever do, then I want it LOCAL, and ONLY local. Anarchy seems like the best idea so far. Democracy, is, as far as I can tell, exactly what you described above: A trick.
Well and rightly said.
They think we want power over them. We don't. We just want to live!
I don't want to wrote about this stuff every day. I want to talk to bees and watch toddlers chase chickens. I do this because humanity needs to be free—not because I get off on it or want power.
Our overlords see things through their own lens.
You sound like me. Good job!! LOL I am soooo enraged and soooo resentful, and it’s not healthy, so I spend a lot of time mitigating and working on my spiritual self-consoling. Cheers, m’dear, I really like your writing.
Please come anytime—we can comfort each other and calm each other down!
There is a better way than politics, and technology that didn't exist in 1776 is making it possible. Decentralized consent-based governance is already starting to happen. Free cities allow people to choose the rules they live under because they can vote with their feet, going where they are treated best. There is nothing governments do better than free markets, including governance. Without political favors, companies must please their customers or go out of business.
"There is nothing governments do better than free markets, including governance."
—Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who still do not see how this could possibly be possible…as is evidenced by the polite debate I am having with another elsewhere in this thread.
If you think decoupage following is impressive you should see power washing driveways. I think people are happy to ignore politics until it touches them. In my case we are still $300 a week worse off than we were in 2020 because of politicians and the idiots who believed them. We don't get a new system by ignoring the old one, losing our real power (money and land) day by day. The unconstrained view of humanity is fine on a micro scale, let's all non violent communicate to new levels of closeness, but these people, the government, they will let go of their power when we wrest it from their cold dead hands and not before.
Yes, the power-mad are a nasty lot. Though it is also possible that their power can collapse, leaving a window for us to escape.
Ultimately, escape is the solution. The old model—one system gets forced upon everyone in a given space—must end. It's a recipe for endless strife. Ultimately, we need to move to something panarchic.
I get what you are saying about politics taking an interest in you, whether you like it or not. It's a real problem. My response to it is encapsulated here: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/should-you-vote
I sometimes think we’d be better off if computers ran the world—humans can’t even bake a cake without turning it into an ego contest.
Could we perhaps try nobody running the world?
That’s an interesting thought experiment. Do you think we would descend into a Mad Max dystopia or something similar to now but with different incentives?
Good question. I think market solutions would arise to provide justice and security, just like market solutions arise to meet every other need.
But even if they didn’t (they would, but even if not), think of the alternative. Governments slaughtered 400 million in just the 20th century. In their absence, and in the absence of any market solutions, you would have people defending themselves, or each other in small groups. Even in a worst-case Mad Max scenario, you would not be able to match the death toll of governments. Governments can tax, print money, and conscript soldiers. And they have incentives to wage wars that do not exist in their absence. The Lord Humongous has no such ability.
I will take my chances, thank you very much 😁
Haha, yeah, we’d definitely see lower taxes and fewer national wars, but the trade-off would be a chaotic scramble for resources, where the few at the top would dominate and the weak would be left to fend for themselves. Public services like fire departments and libraries would collapse, and knowledge would be hoarded by an elite few in ivory towers. Society would break down into smaller, more tribal groups, fighting over which ideology is king. The loss of life would likely be far worse than in any war, and people would constantly be stuck in survival mode, reacting based on raw, animal instincts. In the end, humanity would regress, becoming more isolated and less cooperative.
That is a common assumption. However, there are a number of problems with it.
Libraries and fire departments used to be private, and they worked fine. Roads used to be private. Even putatively nonrivalrous, nonexcludable “public goods” like lighthouses used to be private, and they worked fine.
Why would knowledge be hoarded? The internet exists now, and that is almost entirely a private phenomenon. Information has never been more democratized.
Private law societies (where justice and security were provided by private courts and security agencies) have existed in the past, and they worked fine. And those did not have the benefits of modern methods and technologies the way we have now.
And what we have now is a scenario in which a few dominate and exploit the many. And I think you really underestimate how hard “warlords” would have to work to slaughter 400 million people. That is A LOT of people.
Again, this “without government, we would have chaos” assumption is quite common, but it isn’t really borne out by the facts. It also requires that we pretend that government is something that it is not…it requires that we argue from some sanitized brochure version of government, rather than the reality.
I understand that what I am saying probably seems new. But if you dig in to the corpus of writing on the subject, I think you would be pleasantly surprised.
There are a lot of ways to approach this, but here’s the main point: without a currency system, we’d be stuck with bartering, which is inefficient and impractical for a society on a large scale. This would lead to widespread cheating and dishonesty, as there’d be no consistent standard of exchange. Without regular salaries or other incentives, most people would only be motivated to work for basic survival, leaving little room for innovation or progress.
With fewer people working in essential services, systems like the internet would collapse. There wouldn’t be enough people maintaining it, let alone advancing it. Disputes between people would likely be resolved through violence, as there would be no system to fairly manage conflict or enforce justice.
In such a system, the flow of information would be severely restricted, making education harder to access. Fewer resources would be produced overall, and without proper systems in place to manage health, diseases would spread more easily. Ultimately, many people would suffer, and the lack of infrastructure would lead to unnecessary loss of life.
You can never get to the end of politics. It is an undefined mish-mash of one-upmanship and a battle of arrogance and egos. There are NEVER any winners in this sordid game of stupidity. Government in any form = pure misery.
We can govern ourselves, thank you very much!
> And nobody wins in a democracy. Nobody wins, and there is never any end to the fighting.
I'll quibble with you there. Lots of people win in democracy, and in monarchy, and in oligarchy, etc.
Human action happens -- even that which is violent -- because humans perceive an advantage to doing it. Systemic, persistent human arrangements like government exist because there is a perceived advantage for many, and also an actual advantage to doing it (hence people keep doing it). Nancy Pelosi and J.D. Vance win at democracy. So do their enthusiastic supporters.
Folks like you and I have to show people that there are better, more humane advantages to seek and to win than the imposed order and control aimed for by government pursuits. But I think we have to acknowledge that people clearly win at government and that government works for what many people are targeting as their ends; that's why it persists.
The permanent bureaucracy and ruling class win. Their dependents win. Point taken.
I am speaking mostly to the liberty movement—to the people who argue that we have to “fight fight fight” within the democratic system. Nobody who wants to be free will ever win with that approach. They need to fight to end (or escape) that system.
Well put! I hope Many read and grasp!
Many will hear "post-political" and think it sounds good. But if they hear "post-democratic," they will think the sky is falling!
True. Sad They don’t grasp…