After the war, the Hermetian government must control Mirkheim and issue licenses for supermetals mining rights. Van Rijn comments that the Commonwealth government would not accept the independent companies or the League as a whole as agents for Mirkheim because:
"'Something besides another government having the right to decide things? Much too dangerous. Might get folks at home wondering if they do need politicians and bureaucrats on top of themselves.'" (pp. 278-279)
But, if we do not need politicians or bureaucrats, then someone will see through this deception eventually especially with thousands of colonized planets in Technic civilization. We need to read more sf about future anarchism. We are told that human beings on Avalon eventually give up the habit of government but are not shown Avalon in that period, unfortunately.
This is the last post for 2021.
14 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Actually, no. We do see mention in THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN that the human colonists of Avalon still retained a kind of gov't. But its powers were strictly LIMITED.
Happy New Year! Sean
Sean,
Erannath:
"'[Government]'s irrelevant to us. My fellow Avalonians who are of human stick have come to think likewise.'"
-CAPTAIN FLANDRY: DEFENDER OF THE TERRAN EMPIRE, p. 196.
Paul.
stock.
Kaor, Paul!
That still does not look like complete abolition of a gov't. More like strictly limited. And even Ythrians had their choths, khruaths, and wyvans. And administrative agencies for certain public services, such as having admiralties for managing military affairs.
Happy New Year! Sean
Sean,
When people think that marriage is redundant, they stop getting married. Education redundant, they stop learning. Church redundant, they stop going to church. Etc.
Choths and Kruaths are not governments because they do not monopolize violence.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I still disagree, because wyvans, khruaths, choths, etc., still carry out some of the functions of gov't. Also, on rare occasions, wyvans can cry "oherran" on choths within their jurisdictions which refused to obey the decrees of a khruath, requiring the other choths, if they agreed with the wyvans, to use force on the rebellious choth(s). That sounds like a temporary monopoly of violence to me.
Also, we do see some public agencies, civil and military, in THE PEOPLE OF THE WIND, that Ythrians had to support via taxes, taxes which must have been ratified by the khruaths and choths. With face being saved by calling such taxes "gifts."
In short, on both Avalon and the Domain in general, we see Yhthrians making compromises and accepting the de facto establishing of a gov't. My point being this kind of gov't had strictly limited powers. Which I believe is a good idea!
Happy New Year! Sean
Sean,
Of course you still disagree. No one is obliged to respond to Oherran. But it is a deathpride matter so, if Oherran is not heeded, then the Wyvan who called it has no alternative but honorable suicide. He has no way to enforce Oherran or any other decree.
Some voluntary government functions is a different matter from legitimization of the power to use force.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
All this, about choths, khruats, wyvans, oherran, administrative agencies of any kind, still strikes me as a de facto gov't. And acceptance of that call for oherran by the choths within a wyvan's jurisdiction is still the USE of force.
Happy New Year! Sean
Sean,
The use of force but neither the monopoly of force nor the power to force others to cooperate in applying force. There was no choth law against duels between individuals. If our use of the word, "government," keeps shifting between "monopoly of violence" and "some governmental functions," then we will continue to disagree without meaning quite the same thing.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
An ambiguity I tried to keep in mind by using terms like "de facto."
I still think we see Ythrians making compromises and accepting some KIND of "gov't."
Happy New Year! Sean
You can have -government functions- without a monopoly of violence.
But you can't have a -State- without at least claiming that.
Eg., a tribal society like the Kikuyu or Maasai in pre-colonial Kenya had governmental functions -- councils of elders who functioned as courts to settle disputes, for example.
But there was no monopoly of violence, and no institution which claimed it.
Warriors (young men in certain age-groups) lived together and fought and raided as they pleased, selecting their leaders informally on the basis of charisma, though every fit male might turn out if there was a major raid from outside the area.
And the 'court-like' functions depended on local consensus, and things like shunning and "hating out" for people who refused to accept their judgments.
The Icelandic "republic" of the early medieval period was similar.
If enough people refused, you got a blood-feud and people burning down each other's huts and killing each other.
Taking it back to Poul's Technic history, the problem the Ythrians confront is that they're individually more competitive and violent than humans, but less given to large-scale cooperation.
That makes them inferior in war, because war a matter of large-scale cooperation and depends on tight social bonds and a degree of altruism and individual identification with the collective group that they just don't have.
Ythrians find that sort of collective discipline difficult; existing in a universe with humans in it forces them to move -towards- a State-type of organization, but they do it badly because it's against their natural inclinations.
Note that Avalon, which has humans, is the most militarily effective part of their set-up.
Human beings have gone from non-State to almost uniformly State-types of social organization mostly because the State is simply more effective as a power-concentration mechanism, not least in terms of war (or suppressing internal dissent).
This is a process that's taken a long time -- probably around 8000 years, from the very beginnings. But in the long term, it's been inexorable.
In other words, you can have "anarchy" (no State-level government) with human beings, yes.
But you can't have it without a very high degree of interpersonal violence, without the "lex talonis", and without tolerating a lot of day-to-day chaos and danger.
And you can't have it without rendering your society very vulnerable to predation by better-organized outsiders.
This is really a "no box marked other" situation.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I loved this mini essay, it clarifies and makes explicit what I was trying to say in my objections to Paul's argument. Yes, the mere existence of humans and their states (and other races which also had states) made it NECESSARY for Ythrians to move toward some kind of state like institutions. But, as you said, it doesn't come naturally or easily, so they do it badly or awkwardly. Avalon partially excepted, because of the human colonists.
Ditto, what you said about some human societies not having formalized states. But it comes with a high cost, if rule by some kind of consensus breaks down: feuds, vendettas, living in a state of fear, regarding your neighbors as all too likely to attack you. That was exactly what happened in Iceland, during the Sturlung Age. It ended with an exhausted Iceland grateful to accept Norwegian rue, the King would at least keep the peace!
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment