On Thu, Oct 11, 2007 at 09:09:20AM +0530, shiv sastry wrote: > The point that I am getting at is that a democratic nation state requires two > important conditions to survive
As an anarchist, I'm not a huge fan of top down hierarchical organization methods. Unfortunately, with the current flavor of agents bottom-up is not stable. > 1) The state has to be the most powerful armed entity. Coercive powers must > be > retained by the state. Decent folks should need only a minimum of coercion. > 2) The "state" itself must not be one individual, but should be an entity > that > follows a constitution, and that entity should be controlled by a series of > people who are voted in and out of power. It takes very watchful observers to keep that delicate thing in operation. It's easily hijacked, and with modern SIGINT and enforcement technology a tiny fraction can completely control a large body of people, indefinitely. > When the state loses its coercive power to someone else - you can get civil > war. If that "someone else" does not subscribe to democracy such as in the It is important to realize that in the age of advanced automation the state doesn't need its citizens. > >I see a global trend towards authoritorian systems, aided > >by brinworld (ubiquitous automatic surveillance, and enforcement). > > When the democratic nation state is threatened by armed coercive forces that > threaten to get stronger than the state a coercive response based on force is > the only effective way of combating that. Where are the armed coerced forces in U.K., Germany, or the U.S.? > The "authoritarian systems" that are being used by democratic nations have > the With a totalitarian system, without scare-crows, is something which would scare George Orwell shitless. Google for Vinge and Emergents, and please realize that we will be able to do all that, and then some, shortly. > tacit support of a significant proportion of the citizens of any democratic There is no support for most things done in a representational democracy. > state. But the democratic state also allows the survival of opponents. If the Authoritarian regimes are the greatest killers in human history. > opponents to the use of authoritarian systems get powerful enough in a > democracy, those authoritarian systems may get rolled back a bit. But rolling > them back will automatically ensure the rejuvenation of forces that threaten > the democratic state, and authoritarian systems will be put back in place. What you're describing is not a problem with old democracies. Old democracies die and turn authoritarian because everybody is too damn busy and apathetic do anything about it. Old democracies are de facto oligarchies, run by lobbies. > The difference between a functioning democracy and a non democratic set up is > the ability to either increase or roll back state authority as the situation > demands. > > The democratic state may have supporters of 3 different viewpoints vying for > influence > > 1) Supporters of the authoritarian systems used by the state > 2) Democratic opponents of the authoritarian system being used in their state. > 3) Opponents of the state itself in terms of ideology, borders and power > structure. -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org";>leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
