B Sandford writes:
> Government is, in practice, a small elite making laws that bind a
> mass. It is very rare for all people who are going to be bound by a
> law to make the law and agree to abide by it. When did you last have
> genuine input into the formulation of a law by which you were to be
> bound? Voting for a 'representative' who you've never met and has
> never heard of you does not, obviously, count.

You are using the term government to mean bad government.  You should
clarify that is what you mean before you start.  When I use the term
government, I mean an institution that works to ensure that all
citizens are political "haves" and economic "haves" and that there are
no citizens that are political or economic "have nots".  I agree that
no current governments are close enough to this ideal.

> > Social democracies generally work that way.
>
> Social democracies are benign dictatorships -

No, there are four main forms of government: tyrannical despotism,
benevolent despotism, constitutional oligarchy, and constitutional
democracy.  A benign dictatorship is a form of benevolent despotism.
The governments of NZ and Norway are both somewhere between
constitutional oligarchy and constitutional democracy.  They are not
dictatorships, benign or otherwise.

> > Not perfectly, of
> > course, and much improvement is needed.  But if what you are saying
> > were true, there would be a lot more revolutions going on than there
> > are right now.
>
> The bullshit that is liberal democracy, the parliamentary system, so
> called pluralism, the right to book a time with the council to have
> a street closed to have a protest-rally, the ethos of western
> individualism - reinforced through capitalism and the mad
> unquestioning scramble, sport on tele, all provide the mass of
> 'legitimate' safety-valves to ensure that a fundamentally dishonest
> system rarely has to face up to its own reality.  Societies with
> comparatively unsophisticated methods of control, eg 'repressive
> dictatorship', are more vulnerable to revolution because, being
> crude an transparent, even an uneducated mass can work out that
> they're getting the shaft. Western liberal democracy - transparent?
> representative?  responsive? it's a great anaesthetic.

You're saying the people of the US, Norway, NZ, Canada, etc, are all
just stupid sheep.  It's not true.  Sure, we are all being manipulated
by oligarchies, political and economic, but most of us are willing
accomplices.  That's why there are no revolutions at the moment.

> > > He says that he is "not sure" if the society needs government.  Also, he
> > > believes any authority(even those that are temporary, but government is
> > > forever) needs to be justified.
> >
> > Why don't you put the question to him directly?  Ask him this:  Do you
> > think the world population can live in peace and harmony with no rules
> > of government at all?
>
> Anarchism does not mean that there are no rules, processes, laws, bodies
> charged with tasks, duties, obligations - it is not the absence of
> organisation and order. Anarchism simply has a distinct way of creating,
> administering and validating the 'bones' of society.

Yes, but that wasn't Milutin's calim.

martin

Martin Smith                    Email: [log in to unmask]
P.O. Box 1034 Bekkajordet       Tel. : +47 330 35700
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