Again Adam

Mirkheim, XXI.

Van Rijn again refers to Adam:

"'Back to school, children of Adam.'" (p. 284)

But I am not sure what he thinks we need to learn. On the one hand, he says that mankind has spoiled things but, on the other hand, he says that maybe we:

"'...will learn water not only flows downhill, it reaches bottom.'" (p. 284)

But we cannot prevent water from reaching bottom!

What mankind has spoiled, apparently, is a holiday from "'...an age of crats.'" (ibid.)

- and he lists the "crat"s:

autocrats

plutocrats

timocrats

bureaucrats

technocrats

democrats

 

But surely the merchant princes of the Polesotechnic League are plutocrats? He says of the "crats" that:

"'...they all tell everybody else at gunpoint what to do.'" (ibid.)

Earlier, Coya Falkayn distinguished between:

"'The state, which in the last analysis relies on physical coercion; or a changeable group of individuals, whose only power is economic....'" (XII, p. 177)

And van Rijn reiterates:

"'...the League was once a free association of entrepreneurs what offered goods and services but did not force them on nobody. It is not private outfits what fights wars and operates concentration camps, it is governments, because governments is those organizations what claims the right to kill whoever will not do what they say.'" (p. 285)

Private outfits exercising economic power, i.e., controlling the production of physical necessities, exercise physical power. Physically coercive states arose to protect economic power. Entrepreneurs selling food do not force it on anyone but everyone has to eat something! - and most people have to work for someone else to earn a wage or salary in order to eat. State coercion exists to prevent theft. Thus, the suggested absolute dichotomy between free entrepreneurs and coercive states does not exist.

Finally, as long as we are saddled with "crats," publicly accountable democrats are obviously a lesser evil than autocrats and it makes no sense to lump them together.