Category: Politics, Power, and Governance

–“Curt: Political power ultimately originates from Economics or exchange, right?”—

[I] am not sure I understand this question. There are three methods of power: 1) force, 2) payment, 3) gossip. One can use those three methods exclusively or in combination to band together into groups or hierarchies, and the focus the group’s efforts on the application of force, payment, or gossip (rallying/shaming/including/ostracizing). Political power – meaning anything ranging from monopoly producer of commons to a distributed production of commons – can be constructed from any one or combination of, those methods of coercion. Political power originates in the ability of humans to organize and coerce. It just so happens that we use gossip to rally and shame and ostracize people from production and opportunity for consumption. But then we scale. It just so happens that you need to use violence to suppress parasitism sufficiently for a market to form, at that scale. But then we scale further. And then to use law to suppress cheating, fraud, and to impose performance, and restitution, and if necessary, punishment. But then we scale further. And then we use wealth created by the application of violence and law and to force market participation rather than parasitism, to pay off those who cannot be forced. And then, we hit the novel inflection point, and scale further: And so we then use force, law and gossip to suppress the suppressors, and rely entirely upon rule of law, without a group that exercises power. So the sooner one develops rule of law, the sooner one starts suppressing the parasitism of the monopoly. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine.

–“Curt: Political power ultimately originates from Economics or exchange, right?”—

[I] am not sure I understand this question. There are three methods of power: 1) force, 2) payment, 3) gossip. One can use those three methods exclusively or in combination to band together into groups or hierarchies, and the focus the group’s efforts on the application of force, payment, or gossip (rallying/shaming/including/ostracizing). Political power – meaning anything ranging from monopoly producer of commons to a distributed production of commons – can be constructed from any one or combination of, those methods of coercion. Political power originates in the ability of humans to organize and coerce. It just so happens that we use gossip to rally and shame and ostracize people from production and opportunity for consumption. But then we scale. It just so happens that you need to use violence to suppress parasitism sufficiently for a market to form, at that scale. But then we scale further. And then to use law to suppress cheating, fraud, and to impose performance, and restitution, and if necessary, punishment. But then we scale further. And then we use wealth created by the application of violence and law and to force market participation rather than parasitism, to pay off those who cannot be forced. And then, we hit the novel inflection point, and scale further: And so we then use force, law and gossip to suppress the suppressors, and rely entirely upon rule of law, without a group that exercises power. So the sooner one develops rule of law, the sooner one starts suppressing the parasitism of the monopoly. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine.