A timely and pertinent commentary. The current presidential election cycle seems to suggest that the orthodoxy of “democracy” is reaching the end of its life cycle. The narrative of people controlling their own destinies through the election of representatives has become transparently, some would say even ludicrously, falsified by a system that is serving up a choice between two frauds, one resembling Hitler and the other Mussolini. Both want more war, both want more control over our lives, both want more of everything for themselves and their rich cronies, and to hell with the supposed citizen-electors, whose votes can be easily bought with TV spots, internet banner ads and Youtube clips.
For those looking beyond the pathetic soap opera that passes for “democratic” politics, the question becomes “What will be the shape of the post-democratic world?” For some, a corollary question emerges: “Why is it necessary, let alone desirable, to organize humanity into a system where a few people tell the rest what to do?” At one time it was alpha males ruling tribes based on their ability to outsmart and outfight their rivals, and “Democracy” is just the latest version, following a long list of failures such as monarchy and theocracy. Democracy was supposed to be fundamentally different, but clearly it isn’t. When some people rule other people, they fix it to benefit themselves. Turns out all humans behave much like others, no matter what hats they’re wearing.
We have a great deal of experience with the failures of coercive systems, and we also have examples of the benefits that arise when people are allowed to organize voluntarily, according to their own needs and desires instead of the dictates of distant “authorities.”
On small scales there are the communal utopian communities like the Quakers and Amish that live by consensus, and on a large scale there is capitalism, which is hard to see because it has been so deeply corrupted by its association with the coercive nation-state. But cleansed of that poison, it is, at its heart, a highly productive, fundamentally peaceful way for people to live with each other. I produce something you need, you produce something I need, we exchange our products and we’re both better off. That concept … the peaceful, voluntary exchange of goods and services … could completely supplant the old, failed model of the coercive nation-state. All the things the nation-state promises (and almost always fails) to deliver could, in fact, be delivered with far greater effectiveness and efficiency if people were able to choose among competing offers, the same way they do when they shop for groceries or cars or software.
All it would take would be for enough people to commit to the principle of non-aggression … the one all the world’s religions give lip-service to but completely ignore in their usually cozy relationships with the coercive nation-states.
We live in a world far more interconnected than any in recorded history. It would seem we have a unique opportunity here and now to do something completely different. It would seem that we have an opportunity to remake the world if we act before the nation-states destroy us with their coercive poison.
