"'Because both our sides have governments,' Targovi said, calming down."
-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 189-453 AT CHAPTER FIFTEEN, p. 349.
But why do both sides have governments? On one level, the answer is that the author projects governments onto a future human society and onto an alien society. But why did human governments start? I suggest that economics (how we survive/earn a living/maintain our physical existence) is more basic than politics (how we organize society). More complex economic systems require and generate more complex political systems, although not vice versa. I suggest the following material sequence:
economics: production and distribution
politics: power and resistance
history: progress or regression
An economy based on competitive accumulation requires a state to enforce property laws - hence, the "governments" to which Targovi refers - whereas a society in which "...every last livin' bein' [was] rich..." would not require any such laws.
In Poul Anderson's "The Longest Voyage," Val Nira describes an interstellar civilization in which there is almost no coercive government:
advanced technology enriches everyone (Why should it not be used for this? What else would it be used for?);
crime is rare and is cured, not punished;
a devoted fellowship does not rule anyone but supervises the common welfare.
Sufficiently advanced technology should make something like this possible, if not inevitable. Outmoded power structures and mind-sets will have to be overcome but this is possible.
26 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I disagree with Diana, Targovi, and you. Despite a background which should have disabused her of naivete, Diana was still very young and unwilling to accept how imperfect and permanently flawed we all are.
One error is how some still cling to the impossible fantasy of some mystic common ownership of everything "socialism." That fantasy has been tried many times and has never succeeded. It was either attempted and quickly discarded when it was realized it would not work (as in the Plymouth colony in Massachusetts) or it became a brutal bureaucratic totalitarian despotism (as in every single Marxist-Leninist regime).
Another error is how too many stubbornly refuse to accept how we have gov'ts, in no matter what forms, because we need them simply to keep the peace within a nation or for defense against outside aggression. All humans are innately prone to being prone to being quarrelsome, aggressive, violent, competitive, etc. It does not matter if Persons A,C, or E are not like that if Persons B,D, or F are competitive or aggressive. And Persons A,C, or E are likely to have children who are not like their parents. And on and on.
Ad astra! Sean
Both sides have governments because without a government people kill each other.
They kill each other a -lot-.
In a pre-State setting, the standard way for an adult male to die was to be killed by other human beings. A bit less common for adult females, but still very common.
This is the standard pattern for social predators like wolves or human beings.
Governments fight wars, but without government there is nothing -but- war.
Or to put it another way, governments attempt to monopolize violence.
And as with any other government monopoly, the price goes up and you get less.
Low-level, but continuous.
I think that, with the benefits of technology, things can, not inevitably will, be very different in future.
Sean,
Past examples of "failed" socialism were very limited, were met with great hostility and were simply not comparable to what potentially can be built in future with very advanced technology. Should the wealth continue to be hoarded when that has simply become no longer necessary?
Paul.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: Exactly! You expressed more clearly what I was trying to say.
Paul: No, mere technological changes will not eliminate the drives, urges, desires, etc., that makes humans what they are in all the ways you don't like. The things which have worked best has been the limited state, in no matter forms, and free enterprise economics. A limited state a la the UK or the US, strong enough (but not oppressively so) to keep internal peace and defend against outside enemies. And free enterprise economics channels human aggression and the desire to be competitive into beneficial ways and innovations.
I believe your persistence in defending the hopelessness of socialism is futile. The brute fact still remains it has failed every time it's been tried, often brutally and bloodily so.
Free enterprise economics does not "hoard" wealth. It has created vastly more real wealth for vastly larger numbers of people than anything else, like socialism, has ever done. All the problems you see in real societies springs from the innate flaws of human beings, not free enterprise economics.
Ad astra! Sean
Nothing is innate. Homo sapiens as a species is differentiated by the fact that it cooperatively changes its environment by hand and brain and has changed itself into the species that it is in the process.
"And as with any other government monopoly, the price goes up and you get less."
That's a major part of the answer the author gives in the book "Why Nuclear Power has been a Flop"
It's available for free download if you sign in to the appropriate website.
Kaor, Paul!
Because what we have seen in the past and what we see now, esp. as regards the practicalities of running a real society/state and economy, is far more likely than not to be what's seen in the future. I call that simple realism!
It is unimportant if there are some billionaires--it cannot be denied that free enterprise economies has created vastly more wealth for far larger numbers than socialism ever has done. Billionaires also serve as a source of capital for new investments and innovations--Elon Musk comes to mind!
We are going to have continued divisions because human beings, like it or not, are social predators who are contentious, ambitious, competitive, strife prone, etc. The facts of real life and real history supports my argument, not yours. I have seen no reason to expect that to change.
You keep hoping for what is called a post scarcity economy. That requires a free enterprise economy to bring about. And that in turn requires mankind getting off Earth to make use of the resources of the Solar System. Which requires, btw, competitive, ambitious men willing to take chances and accept risks.
And a post scarcity economy might still be attended with mass technological unemployment and socio-political upheavals of the kind Anderson speculated would happen in stories like "Cold Victory" and "Quixote and the Windmill." I don't believe most of the human race wants to be the kind of people you would like them to be.
I agree it is one of the talents of humans that they can change the environment around them as much as possible to suit their needs and wishes. That does not alter the fact humans are social predators far more inclined than not to be violent and competitive, including competing for wealth, status, power. Those drives and urges are innate, not extrinsic.
I disagree, again, about socialism. Your hopes about it clashes with the harsh facts of actual history, where every time it's been tried socialism has failed, often bloodily.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
It is simply unacceptable to use loaded word like "socialism" as if assuming that that word has one single, clear, unambiguous, mutually agreed meaning. Socialism in the sense that some people mean it and that I have discussed it before has been tried maybe once, not innumerable times. We certainly do not mean mere bureaucratic state control of a society. People will compete for wealth, status and power only in societies where there continue to be private wealth and status and relationships of power. We are merely repeating ourselves here.
Capitalism has certainly been necessary to develop technology as far as it has. That is not in dispute. What comes next? Mass unemployment and upheavals are transitions - but transitions to what? You don't believe that most of the human race wants to be the kind of people that I would like them to be? I didn't know that I had a kind of people that I would like them to be! What will people themselves want in very different circumstances in future? I suggest that there can be conditions in which each individual is equally free to develop in whatever way they want - and those will be different. They will certainly not conform to any blueprint laid down by me or by anyone else.
We periodically stumble back into this very same argument as if we had never been through it before. This time it was kicked off because I responded to certain passages in Poul Anderson's THE GAME OF EMPIRE and "The Longest Voyage." It is Anderson's texts that raise these issues and readers' responses differ - rightly so. The next time that I discuss a text that raises such issues, I will withhold my opinions on the matter. Page viewers do not need to read my opinions again and I do not need this argument again.
Paul.
BTW, life is change. Whatever else it does, it will not remain the same. I call that realism.
Kaor, Paul!
I am sorry if I was too sharp. I would far rather you did not restrain yourself from offering your own views, because Anderson's stories are so well done they can provoke opposing commentary.
I would still argue for a definition of socialism that fits what has occurred in real history, not an idealistic definition.
Your preferred view of what humans should be like "seems" to be that they would not be competitive, ambitious for status/power, or so prone to being violent, etc. My argument is that any realistically organized and tolerable state/society has to take such things into account and find ways for managing, not eliminating such traits. And I believe that was Anderson's basic view as well.
Apologetically! Sean
Sean,
There are two questions here:
What kind of society can realistically be built here and now?
What kind of society might be built in very different circumstances in the future, including in really remote futures?
When I was discussing the second, you replied as if we were discussing the first. Issues become confused if the questions get mixed up. We disagree about both questions, obviously, but we need to differentiate them for the sake of clarity. Factors that are obstacles to social progress now will not necessarily (to say the least) still exist in very changed circumstances in a further future.
Knowing that societies have changed and will change further (for either good or ill), we can analyse the factors that influence change and make realistic, not just idealistic, assessments of what might be brought about. For example, we know that there is so much dissatisfaction that there will from time to time be mass resistance to government policies but we cannot predict exactly when such resistance will break out or over precisely which issue. Governments know this. They think carefully before implementing what are bound to be unpopular policies because a sudden change in living conditions might be too unpopular, provoking too much resistance - from the government's point of view. Whatever else happens, nothing remains the same.
And look at what has been brought about:
universal suffrage for both men and women - ruling parties now have to make some effort to ensure our vote
Apartheid ended
the Iron Curtain dismantled
supposedly impregnable dictators overthrown
capital punishment abolished in Britain
A lot more is necessary. And more is possible.
Paul.
Paul: true, change is an eternal constant. OTOH, 'progress' is a Victorian propagandistic myth. If it means anything, it just means "changes I happen to like".
Kaor, Paul!
Besides what Stirling said I don't all these "changes" will be good or desirable. And it's also my view capital punishment is the right and just way of punishing the vilest crimes. That said I agree persons condemned to death should have a right of appeal.
Also, real changes, if any imposed by the State are to be real and beneficial, needs to come about, as Edmund Burke argued, gradually, incrementally, by consensus. Alleged reforms forced thru by violence and tyranny, are very likely to provoke furious opposition, up to and including civil wars.
No more Utopianism!
Ad astra! Sea
As a matter of fact, I agree with some of these points but would argue for further subtlties, further subdivisions of some propositions, but I think that we have had enough of this for the time being.
Human beings are material objects -- mammals, and the product of an evolutionary history.
That history has made us behaviorally flexible, but only within limits. There are commonalities to human behavior in every setting. And if it's universal, then it's innate.
You have made me aware that some problems might be deeper rooted than I had thought.
Sean: "capital punishment is the right and just way of punishing the vilest crimes"
I always have reservations about the death penalty because mistaken convictions are possible.
Someone sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, can be released if evidence for innocence is found.
In Britain, Irishmen wrongly convicted of a pub bombing were imprisoned and one of them died in prison. The others were exonerated and released years later.
Kaor, Jim and Paul!
Jim: That is why I would limit the death penalty only for the vilest crimes, with those condemned to death having a right of appeal. Not, as during the "Bloody Code" era of British history, you could be hanged for stealing a few shillings or poaching a rabbit.
Paul: Humans being what we all are, flawed and imperfect, often bigoted and irrational, miscarriages of justice are all too possible. That is why we have defense attorneys and rights of appeal, at least trying to correct such abuses.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But we can't bring back the dead. If flawed, imperfect, bigoted, irrational miscarriages are all too possible, then death sentences are on very shaky ground.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Not in all cases! Here I have cases like that of the monstrous cannibal mass murderer Jeffrey Dahmer.
Humans being what they are, justice is always going to be imperfect, but we still have to try distinguishing between major and minor crimes.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
If we kill someone who would otherwise have lived for several more years or decades, then we are closing off the possibility, however unlikely this might seem, that he might have prayed/meditated/repented/been converted/reformed etc in that time. This does seem too like usurping God's prerogatives figuratively speaking, of course.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
What you stated would be ideal, but unfortunately not always possible.
Also, Scripture has stated, in both the OT and NT, that God delegated to worldly states the right and duty of punishing crimes, up to and including the death penalty. But many commentators noted with surprise how mild Jewish law codes were, compared to those of their pagan neighbors. And this mildness increased, as time passed, with penalties becoming gentler, including limiting capital punishment. And that would have its effects as well on how Christians developed law (albeit with backslidings like the above mentioned British "Bloody Code).
Ad astra! Sean
Sea "That is why I would limit the death penalty only for the vilest crimes, with those condemned to death having a right of appeal"
The crime being particularly vile doesn't make a mistaken conviction less likely.
If anything the reverse. A particularly vile crime generates an intense desire to find a perpetrator, and if the first suspect turns out later to be innocent, killing him prevents doing much to fix that mistake.
Kaor, Jim!
That has sometimes been the case, but not always. I mentioned the Dahmer case because there was absolutely no doubt about his case. Also, considering how long it takes to litigate appeals in the US, there's plenty of time to be sure of the guilt of a person sentenced to death.
Ad astra! Sean
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