Panarchism?

[Crusade]

Was going through wiki and came across this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panarchism

What do you guys think of it? It seems interesting.

[ChrisK]

It seems to me that this is just an open-boarders argument. On a very grand scale and using a capitalist concept (competition) to "drive down" oppression.

Its an untenable system and one that requires modern capitalist governments to give up any stake it has in the current system by actually submitting itself to the will of the people and not only to the bourgeosisie.

[Crusade]

It seems to me that this is just an open-boarders argument. On a very grand scale and using a capitalist concept (competition) to "drive down" oppression.

Its an untenable system and one that requires modern capitalist governments to give up any stake it has in the current system by actually submitting itself to the will of the people and not only to the bourgeosisie.

I don't think it being competitive makes it a capitalist system necessarily. If a socialist society were governed this way, what problems do you think would come that would resemble competition within businesses? To me it seems more like competition within religions(like the wiki article mentioned), philosophies, or even basic political parties than businesses. Although I haven't exactly thought this through, considering I just found out about it a couple minutes ago. :lol:

[ChrisK]

Eh, the whole thing just rubs me the wrong way. If applied to a communist society, it would make much more sense. But then again, a communist societies organization would most likely be very different from what we could imagine now. Something like this might appear, or not.

Anyway, the reason I applied it to capitalism is because wiki indicates that its a successionist ideology, which implies that they believe other governments would start to compete. Another point that I didn't make earlier is that the states violent response to such an act would probably stop such a movement in its tracks.

[Crusade]

When I brought it up, I thought of it functioning in a communist society.

[MortyMingledon]

It seems a little oxymoronic to me.

A state would really have no authority over people if people were allowed to move to another state should they break the rules of the first state. A state without authority isn't really a state. I think the state would become irrelevant after a while, as people would be able to move to any other state as soon as authority was felt.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the way I interpreted that wikipedia article.

[Crusade]

It seems a little oxymoronic to me.

A state would really have no authority over people if people were allowed to move to another state should they break the rules of the first state. A state without authority isn't really a state. I think the state would become irrelevant after a while, as people would be able to move to any other state as soon as authority was felt.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the way I interpreted that wikipedia article.

The article I posted with my edit explains it much better than the wiki article. Here's an excerpt from it that caught my eye:

One will feel closer to his idea if one replaces in one' s mind the word "government", which he always uses, by "social organization," especially since he himself proclaims the coexistence of all governmental forms up to and including "even the AN-ARCHY of Mr. Proudhon", each form for those who are really interested in it.

The author declares himself for the teachings of the political economy of "LAISSEZ-FAIRE, LAISSEZ PASSER" (the Manchester School of free competition without state intervention). There are no half-truths. From this he concludes that the law of free competition, LAISSEZ-FAIRE, LAISSEZ PASSER, does not only apply to the industrial and commercial relationships but would have to be brought to its breakthrough in the political sphere.
Some say that there is too much freedom, the others, that there is not enough freedom. In reality, the fundamental freedom is missing, precisely the one needed, the freedom to be free or not free, according to one's choice. Everybody decides this question for himself and since there are as many opinions, as there are human beings, the mix-up, called politics, results. The freedom of one party is the negation of the freedom of the others. The best government functions never in accordance with the will of all.

[CartCollector]

The advocates of panarchism conveniently forget that there are costs to traveling from one country or "social organization" to another, not just with the actual costs of moving, but also possibly having to learn a new language and culture. People can't just up and move someplace when it suits them, like they can with ideas.

[Wanted Man]

That sounds kind of dumb, because it seems to completely discount the fact that, within capitalism, the "freedom" for individuals to go where they want is not "freedom" for the vast majority of people.

[Kléber]

Interesting idea, never heard of it. Don't see the uses for it though.

Governments are just armed forces of repression for maintaining the political or economic interests of one or more classes against their class enemies. States already do compete with one another on an international level - by going to war. Allowing citizens within a state to be represented by another one (aside from limited forms of dual citizenship based on diplomatic agreements) would compromise the authority of a state and therefore repressive bourgeois states would never submit to unlimited Panarchism. Just because it isn't possible to implement under capitalism, however, does not rule it out as a focal point of agitation. Still, the idea seems too unworkable to be worth demanding as a transitional demand toward the revolutionary abolition of political oppression altogether.

Also there are mutual agreements between people who have localized economic and geographic relations which are institutionalized in municipal governmental forms, and aren't necessarily exploitative, but I don't see how such things would be applicable outside of their local communities.

Communists do believe in something similar - the ideal of "Dual Power," setting up a political authority based on working-class communities that represents workers' interests, as an alternative to the bourgeois state. Within the workers' independent political representation, which has historically taken the form of neighborhood or workplace councils, workers' parties can offer rival proposals for how to manage themselves and revolutionaries can democratically agitate for a revolution - "All Power to the Soviets!" There are some workers' councils in Iraq (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_of_Workers_Councils_and_Unions_in_Iraq) right now with their own militia and all that.