Maybe we do need Kings.

[Busty St Clare]

She may not interfere in the day to day running of government but she (or her representative) still has final say in any new laws passed. Australia has the same constitutional monarchy and had a Prime Minister sacked from office in 1975. Just because she hasn't used her power doesn't make her powerless.

 

[B9]

A King/Queen could provide a figurehead behind which people could unite - in the olden days at least - and oppose the state were it to become intolerable.
The benefit of this would be that infighting amongst special interest groups ( such as occurred in the Spanish Civil War) would be negated as everyone would be answerable to authority.
Take the more recent uprisings in Egypt & Libya, in one case we have a leadership presence in the Egyptian army which is leading to civil calm to a degree in the Libyan case there seems to be no clear leadership and we have civil unrest which is weakening the country allowing intervention by outside forces to have more clout than would be the case were there some form of unity - This is the potential value of Kings who are after all the property of their subjects - it's a two way street.

 

[max_]

A King/Queen could provide a figurehead behind which people could unite - in the olden days at least - and oppose the state were it to become intolerable.
The benefit of this would be that infighting amongst special interest groups ( such as occurred in the Spanish Civil War) would be negated as everyone would be answerable to authority.
Take the more recent uprisings in Egypt & Libya, in one case we have a leadership presence in the Egyptian army which is leading to civil calm to a degree in the Libyan case there seems to be no clear leadership and we have civil unrest which is weakening the country allowing intervention by outside forces to have more clout than would be the case were there some form of unity - This is the potential value of Kings who are after all the property of their subjects - it's a two way street.

Alright, I loved this one. It got me thinking that we also need Gods. Of course we need Gods and Kings. Please, keep in mind that I am not talking about Absolute Monarchy nor the Catholic Churh. Each and every group of humans that has ever existed developed these figures at one time or another.

Kings as such no longer exist but their power is still being exercised by people or institutions. More or less legally and totally scattered, but still. Gods.. Well Gods are here. Whether you like it or not you do believe in something. There's a lot of new age crap going on about atheism (train of thought for which I advocate) but people needs systems of beliefs. If you don't like Jehovah you can trust the American Dream and whatnot.

I don't believe we have evolved too much in the last 5000 years, we just got awesome technology now. We are the monkeys that we have always been with our superstitions and despot leaders. AND IS NOT A BAD THING.

 

[ebola?]

If what you're advocating is a minimalist technocracy, there had better be a damn near foolproof criterion by which to assess intellectual merit if you want to avoid abuses and ensure the continued liberty of the citizens.

This is not what I'm advocating. Rather, the idea is to distil expertise to its most valid core, where collaborations are open and fluid, people contributing input according to their knowledge and creativity, their ideas evaluated by as wide a group of constituents as possible. Closed technocratic organizations impose hierarchical authority as dangerous as more explicit political administration.

ebola

 

[panic in paradise]

Alright, I loved this one. It got me thinking that we also need Gods. Of course we need Gods and Kings. Please, keep in mind that I am not talking about Absolute Monarchy nor the Catholic Churh. Each and every group of humans that has ever existed developed these figures at one time or another.

Kings as such no longer exist but their power is still being exercised by people or institutions. More or less legally and totally scattered, but still. Gods.. Well Gods are here. Whether you like it or not you do believe in something. There's a lot of new age crap going on about atheism (train of thought for which I advocate) but people needs systems of beliefs. If you don't like Jehovah you can trust the American Dream and whatnot.

I don't believe we have evolved too much in the last 5000 years, we just got awesome technology now. We are the monkeys that we have always been with our superstitions and despot leaders. AND IS NOT A BAD THING.

8(

again, you cant have gods and kings, as in plural, ruling amongst each other.

 

[P A]

Rather, the idea is to distil expertise to its most valid core, where collaborations are open and fluid, people contributing input according to their knowledge and creativity, their ideas evaluated by as wide a group of constituents as possible.

So...do you envisage your ideal society as anarchic, communal, thoroughly socialized, etc.? As in, what actual structures are you suggesting by way of such clauses as "open and fluid," "distil expertise," and "wide...group of constituents?"

 

[ebola?]

So...do you envisage your ideal society as anarchic, communal, thoroughly socialized, etc.?

In a word, yes, though I think that we would need to conduct a great deal of experimentation to figure out what types of collaborations will work on which scales, using which types of federalist institutions to coordinate inter-organizationally (economics would likely need to be a great deal less 'trans-national' and trans-regional). I advocate a society based around worker's cooperatives as the primary productive and political units, wide community forums determining the distribution of scarce goods, use of scarce resources, and disposal of opulent waste (I break from neoclassicals in that I don't think that all resources are scarce and wants infinite...this becomes true in economies where the threat of starvation is the primary factor impelling people to work).

So my perspective is basically anarcho-syndicalist, though I don't see how we'll get from here to there, nor do I think it likely that we will, so maybe "anarcho-pessimist" would be more appropriate.

ebola

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

max, I think what you're getting at is that people need firm leadership. It's comforting to know who's in charge, and having someone to defer to makes life easier in a lot of ways, and lightens the burden of individual responsibility. Individual responsibility is one of the greatest gifts the Enlightenment gave us, but come on, let's be realistic -- no individual can take full responsibility for everything he's involved in, because his knowledge base doesn't extend that far. So the role for leadership and chains of command is not entirely obsolete at all, just diminished.

To me, "king" implies a large amount of power concentrated in the hands of one individual, to the detriment of his subjects' ability to exert much influence at all upon their own lives. That is definitely a step backwards, and ethically highly questionable in this day and age. That said, look at ideological cults of all sort -- if people in this day and age are given the free choice to be free or be subjects, and they freely choose to supplicate entirely before a king of their choosing, then it's hard to feel bad for them. Being born into a system where your entire destiny is in another person's hands, in a world where there are other options available, now that's a stickier issue.

I have no issue in principle with figurehead kings / emperors / arch clerics like the pope, so long as their actual powers are quite curtailed, and citizens have the right to openly disagree with what they say.

 

[webbykevin]

Lenin said... when we eventually hang the capitalists they will offer to sell us new rope.

And you gotta love the wests attitude to the rest of the world, which appears to be "You will accept democracy and freedom damn it, or we will shoot you".

 

[P A]

anarcho-pessimist

Huh. Well that snappy term pretty much sums my views on the subject as well.

I'm actually pretty shocked to hear a perspective so similar to my own. I guess my only caveat wrt 'syndicalism' is its latent potential for capitalistic (or, god forbid, feudalistic) retrogression, especially if competition/conflict between and within syndicates necessitates violent intercession/arbitration on the part of some private defense contractor (or whatever)--->all-out war--->end of freedom. On this tack, I get the impression that most non-pessimistic anarchists are unable or unwilling, probably for abstruse technical reasons, to confront the very worst tendencies of the species that they intend to save. Turn down the wrong alley in any crowded city, and one may find oneself face to face with just the sort of person who is fully prepared to enter and thrive within the world that the prototypical anarchist wants to live in.

Either way, I can't pretend enthusiasm for any radical 'movements' these days. With every independently circulated magazine touting the latest (barely differentiable) revolutionary "-ism" calling itself a 'movement,' and all the internecine, quasi-academic bickering between and within almost every radical leftist group, one can only wonder how these people can any longer take themselves seriously, let alone continue to rationalize their own pathetic impotence on a theoretical/sociopolitical basis. The last time we saw anything resembling a coherent expression of collective action in the US was in the Seattle protests of '99, which, as far as I'm aware, weren't exactly revolutionary in scope. And Occupy is just...bizarre.