A People United…But for What Purpose?
CHOOSING to be together. (DN 2.5)
Cover page | Preface | Introduction 1 | Introduction 2 | Introduction 3 |
(Part I) Why: 1.0 | 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.5 | 1.6 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 1.9 | 1.10 | 1.11 | 1.12 | 1.13 | 1.14 | 1.15 | 1.16 | 1.17 | 1.18 | 1.19 | 1.20 | 1.21 |1.22
(Part II) What: 2.0 | 2.1 | 2.2 | 2.3 | 2.4 | 2.5
Chapter 2.5: Relationship to the State, 3
For the lifetime of every living person, and for centuries before, we’ve had one model for social and political organization: large countries imposing one-size-fits-all ‘solutions’ on large groups of people. It’s all we’ve ever known.
When contemplating what a new, freer world will look like, it is easy to get bogged down with the baggage of the past.1 Concepts like panarchy sound alien and unworkable. City states and small, independent polities seem like ancient history.
We have to “take our country back” (and then impose our one-size-fits-all solution upon everyone else). What other choice do we have?
But that’s just it—when human beings do have choices, we come up with all sorts of innovative solutions. With our framework, the sky’s the limit. And eventually, we will even transcend the sky.
But we have to get there first, and that is going to take some doing.
The engine powering that journey will, of course, be people. Individuals with a shared set of values, working towards a shared objective: human independence.
This brings us to the important concept of dispersed populations.
Separate individuals are just that—separate individuals. Add in some cohering factor, however, and the picture changes. Diasporas and stateless peoples (such the previously discussed Rohingya) are examples of dispersed populations with a cohering factor (usually an ethnic identity).
As shared factors increase, some dispersed populations will display emergent properties that place them within the family of anarchist phenomena…
They are decentralized, yet if they have a sufficiently cohesive identity or culture, they may be considered a “nation” of sorts. They will generally not have any central authority, but they will nonetheless have norms and rules of conduct, with personal reputation and respect for a cultural ethos tending to regulate behavior.
Add in some sort of shared mission, and the coherence grows even more. The Canadian Truckers, for example, were able to take spontaneous and highly effective action against draconian Covid measures, with no enforced leadership structure. American biker groups are similarly effective at coordinating their actions in spite of being highly decentralized.
It may sound strange to say it, but the analogy is apt: such dispersed populations constitute, in essence, a kind of modern tribe. They may be comprised of separate clans who share more local characteristics in common, but when their shared principles and identity are strong enough, they can also take coordinated and collaborative action for larger purposes.
Dispersed populations are an important aspect of the framework…and the power of dispersed populations will be an important component of our distributed nation.
Back when I lived in Los Angeles, I did some photojournalism at several political rallies, most of which were organized (in part) by the communist front group A.N.S.W.E.R. The largest of these was the absolutely massive pro-amnesty march in downtown LA on May Day in 2006:
There were people and signs and flags as far as the eye could see. The sound was deafening. I called my wife and just held out the phone so she could hear it herself. Then I hung up because I could not hear a word she was saying.
Vuvuzelas. Whistles. Shouting.
And, of course, the omnipresent chant: “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido.” (A people united can never be divided.)
The idea of “a people united” is intoxicating. Yet all too often, being “united” means cramming everyone into one collective. Defeating your enemies and then imposing your way of life upon them. One size fits all, and if you did not consent to it, too bad.
Imagine instead a dispersed population of people who live their own lives their own way, but who also agree about a set of fundamental principles and CHOOSE to collaborate in pursuit of a shared mission. Not the pursuit of power, but a quest for ever-greater liberty and independence.
Can a dispersed population cohere around such a notion? Not around a leader, but around the principles themselves—and around a quest to spread the prosperity and joy that come from those principles? I believe so.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves. First we must finish our exploration of the broader framework landscape…
Partially independent (de facto)
Dispersed populations operate in a condition of partial, de facto independence. It is simply not possible for governments to control the emergent order that arises from the private interactions of thousands or millions of individuals. Such a “nation” may not enjoy legal independence, but they are still able to govern many of their internal affairs without government meddling.
A similar condition applies to autonomous zones such as the aforementioned Zomia in Southeast Asia and Rojava in northern Syria. Rojava does have internal leaders who have made an official declaration of independence. Zomia does not. Both are simply beyond the official state government’s ability to manage, and so enjoy a partial and de facto independence.
Zomia has been called “the anarchist country you’ve never heard of” (though “region” is a more accurate term than “country”). People in the Zomia region generally self-govern according to local custom. They are proudly resistant to any central authority or taxation, and they live in relative peace. Rojava, by contrast, has been fraught with a fair degree of conflict. Neither is an paragon of modern anarchocapitalist principles in action, of course, but they are examples of autonomous zones, and thus a component category of the framework concept.
Cheran, Mexico, may be a better example of a quasi-anarchocapitalist autonomous zone…
About ten years ago, the townspeople of Cheran—fed up with corruption and exploitation—launched an (almost completely peaceful) revolution in which they ousted all politicians and police. They have checkpoints on the road into the city and simply refuse to allow any government officials, military, or police back into the town, on any pretext.
For whatever reason, the Mexican government has chosen not to launch some war to “take back” Cheran, and the people there have been able to self-govern for the last decade in a condition of de facto independence.
De facto independence is also, in essence, the goal of intentional communities. They generally do not openly seek political independence from the state. Rather, they simply have a way of life they would like to try, or an ethos they would like to follow, and they wish to be as internally self-governing as possible in pursuit of that chosen mode of life.
The Amish want to live according to a particular set of Anabaptist teachings. The founders of communes believe they can build a community centered on sharing and common effort. Fraternal orders want to do their thing.
There are also a few cults out there masquerading as intentional communities, but that is a separate matter (one we will touch on briefly later in this work).
The bottom line, for our purposes, is simple. If human rights are to be respected, then people must be free to choose their preferred mode of life, and they must be free to self-govern in that pursuit. So long as participation is voluntary and exit is not prevented, no one—neither man nor beast nor a bunch of men calling themselves “government”—should have anything to say about it.
The groundwork is almost completely laid. We’ll be getting to the specifics of the distributed nation forthwith—I am writing as fast as I can! And you can help me get there!
“Bogged down with baggage.” Is that a mixed metaphor? Don’t care. I do what I want.
Great videos on Cheran Mexico Independence! I had read about it at the time but thought they would soon be crushed. God Bless Them!
Whether there are human rights or not, what is the purpose of existence? To serve some idiotic masters calling themselves a government? Not in the least. However it is achieved, the goal is to live in relative peace and freedom apart from the yoke of an abusive and tyrannical clown show...and few governments in history have been anything but.
There is no one to say that smaller groups of like minded individuals and entities cannot break apart and form their own communities. Humans are extremely resourceful when they want to be and when was the last time government proved to be resourceful?