(April 20, 2015 at 2:17 pm)francismjenkins Wrote: They call ideologies like this "radical" for a reason, most people who have not taken the time to really learn this stuff, literally have no basis from their experiences by which they can understand how a system like this could work. So most people would just write this off without any real analysis (which is unfortunate, because there's a really rich history here that most people never learn about).
Ideologies like this are marketed as 'radical' to get around the fact that they never address basic functions required of any government or community structure. It's easier to do as you just did and claim a 'radical' knowledge of something others don't understand.
These ideologies, which all hinge on some form of direct assembly, cannot function beyond however many people you can squeeze in a room and provide enough time for all concerned citizens to be heard. Doesn't leave much time for debate. Keep in mind that this is just for deciding if the parking lot should have straight or angled parking. Repeat for everything else considering the utopian consensus that is constantly being invoked with no clear definition or prescribed means of gaining consensus.
The ideas of administrative confederations to herd local assemblies is also unrealistic regardless of the agreed human rights and ecological standards that are to serve as the basis of confederation decisions. How do roads built in any one community have a hope of mating with roads proposed in another community?
None of these ideas propose forms of dispute resolution, just more hand waving at the idea of consensus. Seriously, by what means are disagreements to be arbitrated/adjudicated? Saying that in a perfect world people will come to an agreement is quite frankly idiotic making the entire enterprise not worthy of serious consideration.
What mechanism is in place to protect individual rights?
You mentioned that people can just go get what they want from the store, but there's never an explanation of how the goods get to the shelves. Who makes them? What if nobody wants to make toilet paper? What about unsavory services, like emptying your shit from a septic tank? What if nobody agrees to perform this service? I suppose this means that everyone is compelled to perform this task on their own. Extend this to all sorts of goods and services and you quickly revert to some sort of subsistence existence.
The very worst aspect of these ideas is that they ignore history and why certain institutions were developed. There's certainly room for improvement, but jettisoning all current community and societal organization institutions while pretending that the underlying problems for which they were created don't actually exist is naive.
