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Old 10-18-2013, 12:20 PM   #259
piercehawkeye45
Franklin Pierce
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Minnesota
Posts: 3,695
Quote:
Originally Posted by henry quirk View Post
As I wrote about elsewhere in this forum: proxyhood is preferable to governance.
One of biggest changes in mindset I've had over the past 6 years is my switch of preference from a highly idealistic socio-economic setup to a more pragmatic robust society. This is due to the simple fact that social and economic interactions are HIGHLY complex and there is no socio-economic theory that can take all the uncertainties and unknowns into account.

This is reason why the highly idealistic communist system failed and will always fail. It makes an assumption that everyone will readily embrace the values of the system. However, this has always turned out to be untrue and some bastardized form of "communism" was always the result. Leftists keep on saying that the theory needed to be refined but I'm convinced that it just too fragile of an idea to realistically be implemented. The same goes for libertarianism in my opinion.

Your "proxy" idea is entirely dependent on the notion that these proxies are willing to cooperate and work within a decentralized "state" model. However, history almost always shows - except for nomadic societies - that the decentralized city-state model tends to centralize through war due to human ambition. Beyond that, our current technology would force these "proxies" to cooperate at levels unheard of throughout human history. The best guide to how your "proxy society" would work is to observe how our current decentralized state model works on a global level, aka the UN.

Quote:
"who obviously does not understand how a 21st century (or 20th for that matter) society and economy works. His worldview is only realistically applicable to pre-agricultural society."

Your evidences to support the assertion(s), please.
See above. The decentralized model has historically only worked for nomadic or pre-agricultural societies. Our current technology requires a high level of planning and cooperation and experience shows us that only a centralized state is really capable of doing this (and they are not even that good at it). When you get multiple actors, each with their own interests, all cooperation goes to shit.
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