Anarchy

[Martin Taylor 990213 09:52]

From [Fred Nickols (980213.0655)] --

Rick (990211.0930) writes --

Governments (and anarchies) aren't "really" out there, any
more than trees or colors are "really" out there. All these
experiences (according to PCT) are perceptual constructions,
based (I am sure) on something that is "really" out there;

Here's the question (and I guess it's for Rick and for Bill P):

Is it the view/belief/theory of PCT that there is nothing out there and, as
Rick says above, "Everything is perception"

Since Rick says he is sure there is something "really" out there, I would
think that your first characterization is wrong, especially as he goes
on to say...

perceptions are a map of that reality; constructions
produced by perceptual functions in the brain.

But you don't have to go by what Rick is "sure" of, because he isn't
guaranteed to be right. You can look at the theory itself.

PCT starts from the premise that there exists an environment external to
every elementary control unit (ECU). The output of the ECU affects
its environment, and, in some way the ECU cannot detect, the effect
propagates through the environment until it affects the input to the
Perceptual Input Function (PIF) of the ECU.

The PIF has (in the canonical form of PCT) an output consisting of a
single scalar value, which we call the value of the "perceptual signal."
That signal is the only thing internal to the ECU that relates to the
environment of the ECU, which is why the phrase "it's all perception"
is so often seen flying around CSGnet. It's only a shorthand for "the
perceptual signals are the only representation of the environment that
we can ever have."

Rick goes too far when he says "Governments (and anarchies) aren't
'really' out there," because every perceptual signal involves some
signals from outside the ECU. Not all of these signals are derived
directly from the sensors, even through the transformations done by
lower level PIFs. Some of the inputs come from imagination and memory,
for example. But all come from outside the ECU, and some come, directly
or indirectly, from outside the skin of the individual--the boundary of
the individual hierarchy. These provide what we can know of what is "out
there."

As Rick says. Governments and Anarchies are "out there" no more than are
trees and colours--but to add to that, the theory suggests (but does not
require) that the higher the level of perception, the more of the PIF
inputs may come from imagination and memory, meaning that they are
parts of feedback loops with two properties: (1) they don't depend on
the "realities" of the outer environment, and (2) they have potentially
very long time lags.

Long time lags in a control loop are important, because they affect the
rates at which output changes can influence the perceptual signal without
causing the loop to go unstable. High-level ECUs may find that there are
long delays between changes in their output and corresponding changes in
their perceptual signals, not only because of the loops that are completed
within the hierarchy, but also because the propagation of their effects
through the external environment goes through many complex (unperceived)
pathways before influencing the perceptual signal.

Necessarily, then (as Rick argued in his "Hierarchy of Perception" paper),
the higher-level ECUs perceive things in the environment that are not
only complex, but also very slow to change (most of the time), in comparison
to the time it takes for a change of, say, muscle tension. When we
perceive something as complex as a government, changes usually occur on
a time scale measured in years, not milliseconds.

We could, in principle, perceive something as complex as "government" as
quickly as we perceive muscle tension. But there would be no benefit, in
the evolutionary sense, to do so, because any attempt to control such a
perception would lead to unstable control loops instead of controlled
perceptions. That kind of ECU would tend to vanish through reorganization,
leaving only slowly changing things in the external world to be
perceived by high-level ECUs. And at the top level, changes may occur
only "once in a blue moon" (which, in UK experience, is about once per
lifetime--1950 and 1883 being the most recent two occurrences).

Martin

[From Mike Acree 990215.1304 PST)]

Since the issues overlap substantially, I'm attempting a composite
response to Rick, Martin, Bruce, and Tracy.

Rick's argument, as I have consistently understood it through a long
string of posts, is as follows (Martin's argument seems to me
essentially the same): (a) Many complex tasks, such as building a 747,
require coordination through hierarchical organization. (b) Any
hierarchical organization is, or has, government. (c) Therefore
government is necessary.

The first premise, though it has often been repeated, has never been
disputed by anyone to my knowledge. The second premise uses
_government_ in a metaphorical sense which leaves it utterly inadequate
to support the conclusion, understood in the usual specific political
sense which is the topic of this entire thread, namely an agency which
holds a legal monopoly on the use of coercion in a given territory (with
anarchy being the absence of such an agency). _This_ is the "verbal
trick," and not a very subtle one at that. I'm with you (Rick and
others) in favoring in general an abstract approach; and there are
surely things to be learned from considering the similarities between
families, baseball teams, corporations, governments, and other
hierarchical organizations. But we will run into trouble in practice if
we ignore the important distinctions between these. Possession of a
legal monopoly on the use of coercion distinguishes government from all
the other kinds of hierarchical organizations you mention; and, given
your apparent agreement (Rick) with Bill on the concept of coercion, I
would expect you to find this a crucial rather than a peripheral
distinguishing feature. I had thought, in fact, that we agreed, thank
goodness, at least on what we mean by that concept, since I agreed with
Bill on virtually all his discussion of that concept last year, and you
did, too--against Tim, Bruce Gregory, and others. But you've been using
the concept lately in a very much looser way. One example was your
remark (990210.1330) to Gregory that "resistance is itself a form of
coercion." If you actually believe that, then you believe that if a
woman fights off a rapist, they should both go to jail. It may be
possible to build a livable society on that basis, but I think it's a
harder sell than anarchy. More recent, and more extreme, was your claim
(990212.0830) to Tracy that

when one tries to get people to
accept _any_ system concept -- even one that says people
should be free and uncontrolled -- there is control of
behavior (coercion).

A year ago you would not have agreed that you and I had been coercing
each other throughout this discussion. I would still say that we're
not. We do speak metaphorically of the "force" of an argument, but we
recognize the usage as metaphorical. Trivializing the concept of
coercion by lumping it together with persuasion makes political
discourse pretty much impossible.

Perhaps we can determine the relevance of coercion (restricted sense)
for you as follows. Suppose that government were a voluntary
association like your other examples, so that membership or
participation occurred only under joint agreement of the individual and
the organization. Membership contracts--formal or informal, implicit or
explicit--include conditions for dissolution if either party ceases to
be satisfied--divorce, resignation, firing, expulsion, or secession. I
think all the evidence from existing privatization projects suggests
that government would quickly disappear. For every service currently
provided by government--education, police, fire, mail--I think people
would use the money they now pay in taxes to buy the services from
competing private firms. (The opposition to privatization among
government employees suggests that they know this, that their job
security depends on government-enforced monopoly, and that the market
would demand higher standards.) Services that nobody wanted to pay for,
like conscription, would disappear. This would be anarchy. If you
would object to such an arrangement, then you are granting the crucial
relevance of coercion. The difference between us is then just that you
favor it--and you can no longer lump government indiscriminately with
orchestras.

Your example of airplane manufacture can, in fact, be used to
characterize anarchy in a slightly different way. If you actually look
at the way airplanes are manufactured, what you will see is several
large, complexly organized corporations. _Several_. Note especially
that there is no Airplane Czar overseeing the whole industry and
deciding which aircraft get produced at what times and in what quantity,
for what price. Such a concept isn't impossible (some countries have
tried it, with less than encouraging results); it just isn't necessary.
Each company has a person or group who makes such decisions, but there
isn't anything or anyone at the top of the hierarchy, over the whole
industry. Nor is the aircraft industry unique. Consider food
production, an enormously complex, sprawling, coordinated set of
organizations. Yet there is no Grocery Czar. (We do have a Secretary
of Agriculture who intervenes forcibly in the process to do things like
legally enforcing _minimum_ prices for dairy products which are 50% to
100% above the free-market price--as a special courtesy to wealthy dairy
producers who contribute to legislative campaigns, and as a special,
ongoing, gratuitous act of cruelty toward the poor. That arrangement
has worked so well that Secretary Glickman is planning to implement a
similar program for pork, which has also been far too affordable for
poor people. But I see no reason why we couldn't do without management
at this level.) Now anarchy is simply allowing _all_ services and goods
to be provided in the same way as airplanes or food or insurance, on the
basis of voluntary negotiation and contract. We don't need
government-enforced monopolies for fire or police or anything else.
_Some_ kind of organization and coordination will obviously be important
in handling the maverick problem, but there is no reason to suppose that
it has to be a protected monopoly. (Those "services," of course, that
are inherently coercive and uniquely governmental, like conscription and
taxation, may not find much of a market.)

Bruce (990210.1345) has raised the question of

what
happens in an anarchy when negotiations break down and contracts are

abrogated.

I've answered that question in a previous post: If negotiations break
down, no transaction takes place. If you want a Stanford library card
but don't want to pay $500 a year for it, there's no sale. Contracts
generally include provisions for abrogation; especially nowadays, they
often stipulate arbitration, just as they would under anarchy. I take
it as understood that reference to contracts and negotiations doesn't
imply that they are always formal and explicit. I don't need to sign a
contract every time I enter a restaurant; any restaurant that refused
restitution or arbitration in a case of food poisoning or fraud would
find its customers going elsewhere after a single such report.

I wonder what
it would be like to negotiate the speed limit
on the Mass Turnpike? I suppose that those who were not part of the
negotiations (visitors from Montana, for example) could legitimately
feel free to drive at any speed they liked. Come to think of it,

that's

what they seem to do now...

Similarly, it doesn't seem much more likely to me that individual
drivers would negotiate driving speeds with the highway owner (though
it's not totally out of the question that safe drivers might be granted
more latitude) than that individual consumers negotiate the ingredients
of Big Mac sauce. Owners would presumably be free to set limits if they
wished, and to deny access to those who violated them; drivers might
choose companies/routes (U.S. 20 or Route 9, etc.) according to policies
on safety vs. speed.

Actually, I think there are more difficult issues with respect to
privatization of roads, like liability for drunken drivers (the driver
vs. the highway owner that admitted the driver). I don't mean they're
insoluble, but I don't think they've received a lot of attention yet,
probably just because privatization of roads is far from the top of most
libertarians' list of priorities.

But let me assume you meant to ask the next question, which is what
happens when someone refuses to abide by the decision of the arbitration
agency (and assuming the process of appeals to other agencies has been
exhausted). I've already answered that question, too (990201.1100):
Such a person makes himself thereby an "outlaw," placing himself outside
the realm of negotiation and contract. Nobody else will feel any
obligation to honor contracts with him, and he will have a tough time
purchasing any insurance or protection services. Most importantly, he
would not be due restitution for harm done to him, which makes it more
or less open season for anyone who has a grievance against him. That
seems a pretty strong deterrent to flouting arbitration decisions.

So let me raise the next question for you and answer it (Martin
indirectly raises this question): Wouldn't private arbitration agencies
be subject to the grossest corruption? Couldn't they easily be bought
by the rich? No, that's much more of a problem under a
government-enforced monopoly. If a private arbitration agency were to
acquire a reputation for favoring wealthy clients, that might well make
them more attractive to the wealthier party in any contract. But it
would make them unacceptable to the less wealthy party, and most
contracts will have one party who will fear discrimination and refuse to
deal with that agency. A scrupulously maintained reputation for
fairness looks like the only way an arbitration agency could stay in
business.

I have referred, in this and earlier posts, to restitution as the basis
for the justice system under anarchy. Restitution is a discriminable
concept from punishment; and, as a contract-based concept, I think it is
compatible with PCT in a way that punishment is not. Martin
(990210.1700) has made the interesting point that

there _cannot_ be a fair contract between individuals of unequal

power.

I might well agree, at least if the concept of power is properly
specified. If it is defined, as Martin does (earlier in the same post)
to include economic power, then that claim invalidates heterosexual
marriage, as many feminists have argued. (I don't necessarily take this
as an argument against the claim.) I think the relevant dimension to
support Martin's claim is political power, and under anarchy there are
no _political_ inequalities.

Martin's concept of inequality of status points up an important
distinction between restitution and punishment, but we must be careful
about the meaning of words. Rick (990210.1030) plays loose with this
concept again, when he responds to Lee's advocacy of training children
in the use of guns:

I presume this was to solve problems by shooting the people with whom

they disagree.

Isn't getting shot a rather severe punishment? If you train people to

shoot other people aren't you teaching them to be

punitive?

Lee was undoubtedly talking about self-defense against government
soldiers who were shooting at them. Self-defense is not generally
considered punishment. Picking up Martin's distinction, I would say
that punishment can occur _only_ between those who are unequal in
status. I can do things to hurt you, but I have no power or authority
to punish you. We speak figuratively of my "punishing" you with a
sarcastic reply, or of a "punishing" hurricane; but we recognize the
figurative use with quotation marks. I think punishment can also be
usefully distinguished from retaliation, which would be applicable to
equals. In this respect (like practically all others), I think Bill was
careful in his usage in Chapter 17. When one stretches concepts as far
as you do, on the other hand--government, coercion, punishment--they can
be used to support virtually any position; but that doesn't accomplish
anything beyond making your position look desperate--"any stigma will do
to beat a dogma."

Rick (990210.1030)--

It looks like you are _defining_ anarchy and government
as different approaches to conflict resolution: the word
"anarchy", by your definition, seems to mean "conflict
resolution by negotiation and contract"; the word
"government", by your definition, seems to mean "conflict resolution

by

punishment-based rule of law". Given these
definitions it's easy to see why [you] think B:CP Chapter 17
is a celebration of anarchy and a condemnation of government.

You write as though my reading of Chapter 17 were strange, but the
strange thing is: that's what the author meant. You (and others) have
yet to say how you interpreted the arguments of that chapter. I remind
you that if you reject anarchy but accept the arguments of that chapter,
there are, so far as I can see, but three logical possibilities:

"(a) Punishment-based rule of law, however feckless and
counterproductive, is nevertheless necessary. (b) Punishment-based rule
of law, contrary to the arguments of Chapter 17, is _not_ feckless and
counterproductive after all. (c) Government, in some sense besides
enforcement of the whims of a dictator, is possible without
punishment-based rule of law. Bill appears to hold (a), referring me
for support to Gibbons; I have explained twice before why I found
Gibbons unconvincing. You (and possibly Tracy?) hold (c). No arguments
have been advanced in support of it (or (b)), and so far as I can tell
it is simply incoherent." (990204.1440)

Tracy has tried to carve out a fourth position by distinguishing two
meanings of "rule of law"; I have given my reasons (990209.1652) for
doubting whether that will get him where he wants to go.

Rick (990211.0930)--

The solution (I think) is to stop trying to analyze society
in terms of system concepts (like socialism, capitalism,
libertarianism, etc) that were developed before we had a
scientific understanding of the nature of humans as
perceptual control systems. If we really want to figure
out how people can best organize themselves I think we
should start looking at human societies in terms of the
nature of the systems that make them up.

I've already expressed my support for this approach (990204.1440), when
I described Bill as having done that in Chapter 17. He didn't spell out
the details about how such a system might be implemented to the degree
that I have in this thread, but that's no criticism of the book. If you
follow through on your proposed project, I'm confident that you'll find
the anarchic system I've described the only one consistent with PCT:
it's the only one that doesn't _build in_ any involuntary, coercive
relationships, like taxation.

When I say that anarchy is unique in not _building in_ coercive
relationships, I am not saying--to repeat--that coercion cannot occur in
an anarchic society. Nothing can guarantee that. Anybody can hold a
club over your head at any time and demand your wallet. What I have
said, and given reasons for believing, is that anarchy can _minimize_
the coercion in a society. Rick also persists (e.g., 990210.1330) in
equating anarchy with pacifism, despite my previously having argued that
anarchy does not imply pacifism. As Tracy (19990211.0800) has pointed
out, a few anarchists have been pacifists, but most are willing in
principle to use violence in self-defense, whether against government or
individual muggers. If I fight off an attacker, I'm not coercing him to
do anything but stop his coercion. If you see us as equally guilty of
coercion, then, as before, I should go to jail for not allowing him to
succeed in robbing me. I'm not especially interested in arguing against
pacifism; I admire Gandhi's strategy of nonviolent resistance; but, like
Bruce Gregory (990212.0517), I wouldn't expect it to work as well
against Hitler or Stalin as against the British, with their (somewhat
bizarre) genteel code of conduct for war.

Rick Marken (990211.0930)--

anarchists . . . are
advocating coercion as much as any advocate of government
regulation; they are talking about depriving people of
their freedom to choose non-anarchy.

That's not only total b.s.; it's another claim I've already denied
(990204.1440). I've said explicitly that in an anarchic society you and
your friends would be perfectly welcome to secede and form your own
dictatorship if you wish. To enslave each other to your heart's
content--but not anybody else. I gather that the freedom to run your
own lives isn't good enough for you. I also pointed out that the
generosity wasn't mutual--that governments wouldn't let anarchists
secede. Remember?

Some miscellaneous responses to various posts:

Me:

The Founding
Fathers of this country were pretty radical for their time (and I'm

sure

would be perceived as dangerously anarchistic today

Rick Marken (990210.1030)--

Now I'm confused. I thought your definition of "anarchy"
is "conflict resolution by negotiation and contract". Now
you are telling me that the Founding Fathers were anarchists
because they went to war over a tax on tea or whiskey (War
instead of negotiation? How is this anarchistic?

I was not implying that the Founding Fathers _were_ anarchists; their
intention was obviously to set up a different government. I _did_ say
"would be perceived." I was assuming that anyone today who signed a
public declaration that it was the right of people to abolish
governments that become oppressive, and who proceeded to violently
overthrow the existing government for reasons like a tax on tea, would
likely be labeled a dangerous anarchist. Am I wrong?

Bruce Gregory (990210.1345)--

don't most governments encourage conflict
resolution by negotiation and contract among citizens? It is only

when

these fail that a punishment-based rule of law is invoked.

I'm not sure what negotiations between citizens you're referring to as
having broken down when the government puts people in jail for smoking
marijuana.

Martin Taylor (990210.1700)--

It was my understanding that the US Constitution
was pretty much a codification of the English unwritten constitution

as

it was at the time (Gearge III) with the exception (insisted on by
Washington) that an elected President replaced the hereditary King.

Is that not correct?

As I said above to Rick, I was not labeling the Founding Fathers as
anarchistic myself; I was only saying that I thought people with their
beliefs and actions would be commonly labeled that way today.

Both English and US revolutionary systems seemed to rely on the notion

that

the rich knew better than the poor what was good for all of them.

The Revolutionary War was not fought just by the rich; and if the
colonists had perceived it as a war to benefit the rich, it's hard to
imagine that they would have won. Some of the signers of the
Declaration of Independence were rich, but many of them lost everything
they had as a result of signing (at least their lives and fortunes).

When there is
conflict, the stronger usually eliminates the ability of the weaker to
control. The stronger thereby often gains strength, making it easier

to

win the next conflict (this is very clearly seen when the conflicted
environmental variable is money). What we have is a positive feedback
process, and they lead either to explosion or to a limiting condition.

Precisely this positive feedback mechanism was one of the reasons I gave
previously for favoring anarchy. Because it applies to government as
well as to anything else. Even though the authors of the Constitution
thought they were placing careful checks on the growth of government
power, the government they set up was still stronger than any other
agency or group in the society. It took a few decades before the
government began seriously undermining those checks, but the process has
drastically accelerated in the 20th century. It won't be an easy
process to stop.

You (Rick and Martin) speak, sincerely I'm sure, of using government to
take money from the rich and give it to the poor. But if you look at
any actual government, you'll see that it functions much more to the
benefit of the rich and powerful than of the poor. The dairy price
supports I mentioned are a typical example (along with pork, sugar,
tobacco, etc.). All the money spent on transfer programs, if it
actually went to the poor, would amount to something like $40,000 a year
for every family of four below the poverty line. That's not what they
get, of course: the rest goes to help make the Maryland and Virginia
suburbs of DC the wealthiest counties in the country. But when I say
"any actual government," I'm including socialist governments as well:
Sweden, Cuba, the Soviet Union. Sweden has always been the showcase of
socialism, and one of the reasons for its success thus far was that it
started out with the highest per capita income of any country in the
world. (That is no longer true.) But my observation has been that
those Swedes who are wealthy enough to travel do as much of their
shopping as possible abroad--furniture, clothes, toys, computers,
everything--to avoid the huge Swedish taxes. Those who are too poor to
travel, of course, are stuck with the tax--which is now still larger
because the wealthy have the means to evade it. So I still count your
argument about positive feedback as a point distinctly in my favor: If
you set up one institution much more powerful than the rest, it's the
rich and powerful who will manage to use it for their ends, to increase
their money and power still further.

In
social structures, that [positive feedback] means riot and civil war,

or strong dictatorship.

(You noted this as a disappointing reason why some historical anarchic
societies succumbed, but did not note that it is a natural consequence
of the anarchy, which it is.)

This is certainly a possible historical eventuality, but I haven't given
it as a reason why any historical anarchic society succumbed. The only
examples I gave were historical conquest, which is not a unique fate for
anarchic societies. (Whether they are especially vulnerable to foreign
conquest is a separate, nontrivial question, with considerations on both
sides.)

I did discuss in an earlier post the hypothetical case of one clan
becoming much larger than the others (than the others put together), so
that it was in a position to constitute a government. This outcome
seems to me more likely in a clan-based than in a modern, industrial
society, though I gave (speculative) reasons even there why I thought it
might not be so likely. The same concern can be raised about a single
protection agency coming thoroughly to dominate the market in an
industrial society; but, again, I have considered this case before. If
a single such agency were to achieve a virtual monopoly, it could hold
that position only by continuing to provide such superior services that
no other agency could compete. Not much basis for complaint there. It
could not easily constitute a dictatorship, or otherwise proceed to
wield arbitrary power, just because this would not be a society, like
Nazi Germany, which had been disarmed by the government. Any move in
that direction would be perceived as threatening, and would open the
door to the immediate formation of other agencies to take all its
business. These are only plausibility arguments, of course; but I
haven't heard them effectively challenged.

If we accept the principle that reorganization within an individual is
more likely to change the hierarchy when there is substantial error

than

when the error is low, we must then argue that people's hierarchies

will

be more likely to change when their social environment makes it hard

for

them to control than when the social environment makes it easy. I

think

it is this that provides the limiting conditions that eventually cause
dictatorships to be overthrown (or to be softened to a tolerable

degree)

and that causes anarchies to give way to systems based on government
and the rule of law. As with individual reorganization, there is a

negative

feedback system that resists disturbances. Departures in either

direction

from government and the rule of law tend to be resisted.

If I understand this paragraph and those preceding, your argument seems
similar to that made by Gibbons: that governments will tend
intrinsically to increase their power (positive feedback), up to a point
which provokes a revolution (or, less drastically, a
"softening"--negative feedback). Most often, perhaps, the revolution
simply substitutes one dictatorship for another, but occasionally there
are gains in freedom at the expense of government power. It is less
obvious to me what mechanism would drive a society back from anarchy
toward government, even though I've observed such a process in
nonpolitical settings. When I started graduate school at Clark
University in 1968, the Psychology Department at that time was as
anarchistic as one could be and remain accredited: no grades, and
absolutely minimal structure in terms of timelines or requirements.
During my first year, a second-year student was dropped because, so far
as anyone knew, he had never done anything but sell drugs; he had not
attended a class or written a paper or showed any interest in the
program at all. But his dismissal precipitated a panic among students.
Without the usual requirements as a guideline, nobody was sure how
nearby the axe had fallen. To my astonishment, they proceeded to demand
grades, deadlines, and requirements--all of which they got, and which
are still in place. I think there's an important lesson here for
anarchist theorists--I've talked about the issue before under the rubric
of self-responsibility--at the same time that I'm unsure how direct a
translation can be made to the political realm.

Me:

To my mind the most interesting aspect of your argument, however, is
that it amounts to a secular version of the Argument from Design: If
there is organization, there must be an organizer--someone or some
agency in charge, constantly intervening to keep things in proper
running order, breaking up the monopolies of IBM and Microsoft,
enforcing the monopolies of the post office and the fire department,

and

so on.

I'm not clear either how the two parts of this quote fit together (the

part

before and the part after the colon). It doesn't strike me as related

to

the Argument from Design. Neither can I see that what I wrote could
reasonably lead you to either part of the quote.

Perhaps I read too much into your specific arguments. I understood your
argument to be the one that I criticized at the beginning of this post:
that some necessary tasks require hierarchical organization of people,
and that such organization implies someone or some group at the top:
hence government. The second premise was my inference from what you
were saying, and was my basis for imputing to you the view that
organization implied an Organizer. But perhaps I've stretched a
metaphor here too far myself. The argument is what counts in any case,
rather than the label.

A summary comment--repetitious, like the rest of this post, and the ones
to which it responds: I'm still looking for what I entered this
exchange for in the first place: a good argument for the necessity of
government--understood in the usual, specific, political sense, and not
just as hierarchical organization per se--or a good argument for why
anarchy wouldn't work--anarchy, not pacifism or chaos or the lack of any
organization. The exchange so far has been useful mainly just in
creating the strong impression that nobody has such arguments to offer,
though that's never been said. If that's going to be eventual
conclusion, I don't need any more evidence at this point. I think
Tracy's approach may have possibilities, but they have yet to be
developed. In the meantime, I'm feeling impatient again with the
process, which feels to me (and perhaps to others) too much like a
monologue, especially since I don't have the sense that anything I've
ever said has gotten through. But if I drop off the screen, I'll still
be listening in.

Mike

[Martin Taylor 990215 16:12]

[From Mike Acree 990215.1304 PST)]

Since the issues overlap substantially, I'm attempting a composite
response to Rick, Martin, Bruce, and Tracy.

Rick's argument, as I have consistently understood it through a long
string of posts, is as follows (Martin's argument seems to me
essentially the same): (a) Many complex tasks, such as building a 747,
require coordination through hierarchical organization. (b) Any
hierarchical organization is, or has, government. (c) Therefore
government is necessary.

Not having yet read the rest of your message, I can't comment on its
content. But I am most interested to discover why you think that the
above is even close to representing my "argument."

Could you explain what I have said that leads you to that conclusion?
If there is anything in my previous messages that could legitimately be
interpreted the way you state, I must write a lot less clearly than
I thought...and for that I have to apologise.

My "argument" if that's what it is, goes in quite different directions.
It simply follows the consequences of believing in PCT so far as to
accept the hypothesis that reorganization tends on the whole to a reduction
of the error in perceptual control throughout the individual hierarchy.
Your (b) and (c) comments have no relation to that, so far as I can see.

Martin

[From Bruce Gregory (990215.1705 EST)]

Mike Acree 990215.1304 PST

A summary comment--repetitious, like the rest of this post, and the ones
to which it responds: I'm still looking for what I entered this
exchange for in the first place: a good argument for the necessity of
government--understood in the usual, specific, political sense, and not
just as hierarchical organization per se--or a good argument for why
anarchy wouldn't work--anarchy, not pacifism or chaos or the lack of any
organization.

You'll excuse me for doubting that this is what you are looking for. It
seems to me that you have a well-defined position that you are defending
against any disturbance. Mounting such a disturbance will not lead you
change your mind, but only to dig in deeper. Let me simply restate Enrico
Fermi's question about extraterrestrial intelligence: If anarchy is viable,
where are the anarchic societies?

Bruce Gregory

[From Rick Marken (990215.2150)]

Mike Acree (990215.1304 PST) --

Rick's argument...is as follows...: (a) Many complex tasks,
such as building a 747, require coordination through hierarchical
organization. (b) Any hierarchical organization is, or has,
government. (c) Therefore government is necessary.

This is not my argument. My argument (one aspect of it, anyway) is
that societies are collections of interacting input control systems.
"Government" and "anarchy" are words that refer to different states
of a perceptual variable (call it "governmental") that represents
aspects of the collective behavior of these control systems.

Possession of a legal monopoly on the use of coercion distinguishes
government from all the other kinds of hierarchical organizations
you mention;

So having a "legal monopoly on the use of coercion" is an aspect
of the "governmental" perception. If there is a perceived "legal
monopoly" then you are seeing "government"; if not, you are seeing
"anarchy". Is that it?

and, given your apparent agreement (Rick) with Bill on the concept
of coercion, I would expect you to find this a crucial rather than
a peripheral distinguishing feature.

Coercion occurs whether there is a "legal monopoly" on it or not.
Coercion is control of the behavior of one control system by another
(stronger) one. Both governments (with a "legal monopoly on the use
of coercion") and non-governments (which have no such monopoly) can
coerce.

But you've been using the concept [of coercion] lately in a very
much looser way. One example was your remark (990210.1330) to
Gregory that "resistance is itself a form of coercion." If you
actually believe that, then you believe that if a woman fights off
a rapist, they should both go to jail.

I use the word "coercion" to describe the control of the behavior
of a weaker by a stronger control system. Assuming that the party
exerting "resistance" to control is stronger than the one trying
to control it then the one exerting resistance is doing the
coercion.

More recent, and more extreme, was your claim (990212.0830) to
Tracy that

when one tries to get people to accept _any_ system concept --
even one that says people should be free and uncontrolled -- there
is control of behavior (coercion).

People who successfully force other people to adopt "freedom" as
a system concept have coerced those people. The US rebels coerced
the British (made them leave); the Jacobins coerced the aristoracy
(made them die). If anarchists successfully force anarchy on people
then those people have been coerced.

A year ago you would not have agreed that you and I had been
coercing each other throughout this discussion.

I still don't think we are. Neither of us is using physical force
to get the other to agree with his point of view so there is no
coercion.

Suppose that government were a voluntary association... I think
all the evidence from existing privatization projects suggests
that government would quickly disappear.

Maybe it would. I just don't think coercion would necessarily
disappear. The coercion might not be carried out by a "legal
monopoly" (since there is no government) but it would surely be
carried out by individuals or small vigilante groups. If I decide
that it would be fun to let all the air out of the tires of your
Private Fire Dept. trucks I bet _someone_ would try to stop me
if they got wind of my plans. If they stop me then they have
coerced me; they are foring me to do something I don't want to
do (leave the air _in_ the tires).

Restitution is a discriminable concept from punishment; and, as a
contract-based concept, I think it is compatible with PCT in a way
that punishment is not.

Punishment is just as "compatible" with PCT as restitution; both
are things that happen to or can be done by input control systems.

Me:

Given these definitions it's easy to see why [you] think B:CP
Chapter 17 is a celebration of anarchy and a condemnation of
government.

Mike:

You write as though my reading of Chapter 17 were strange,

No. I think your reading just misses the main point of Ch. 17,
which is that _we are the problem_ because _we are controllers_.
Government isn't the problem; anarchy isn't the problem;
socialism isn't the problem. The problem is that we -- each one
of us_ -- wants the world (including the people in it) to be
the way _we_ want it to be; this almost inevitably leads to
conflict. We have to learn how to deal with our own nature as
perceptual control systems; and to do that we first have to
learn what that nature is (and how it works); we have to learn
PCT.

but the strange thing is: that's what the author meant.

I don't believe that is what the author meant; I do think it's
what you desperately wanted the author to have meant because
you were committed to the wonders of anarchy before you knew
anything about PCT.

You (and others) have yet to say how you interpreted the arguments
of that chapter.

I have explained (above and in a couple other posts) how I
interpreted the arguments of Ch. 17. Again, what I believe was
meant in the chapter is that _we_ are the problem -- NOT
government. We are the problem because we are input control
systems -- a problem that exists whether there is a government
or not.

I remind you that if you reject anarchy

I'm not rejecting anarchy; I just don't believe that you can
eliminate coercive relationships between people by privatizing
everything or declaring a society to be an anarchy. Coercion
exists because people are controllers, not because there is
a big, mean "government" out there; government -- any government -
_is_ people, even if it's a dictatorship (dictators and dictatees
are people, too).

Me:

anarchists . . . are advocating coercion as much as any advocate
of government regulation; they are talking about depriving people
of their freedom to choose non-anarchy.

Mike:

That's not only total b.s.; it's another claim I've already denied
(990204.1440). I've said explicitly that in an anarchic society
you and your friends would be perfectly welcome to secede and form
your own dictatorship if you wish.

But my friends and I don't want to secede; we want to take over.
Now what do you do? Or do we just not exist in your society?
You keep avoiding answering this question. The question is "how
do you deal with people who work against the rules of you anarchic
paradise"? If you evict them or restrain them or do _anything_
to keep them from violating the rules then you are doing (without
a legal monopoly) exactly what governments do (according to you);
you are _coercing_.

The stronger thereby often gains strength, making it easier
to win the next conflict (this is very clearly seen when the
conflicted environmental variable is money). What we have is a
positive feedback process, and they lead either to explosion or
to a limiting condition.

It's a negative feedback process; there is a controlled variable
(the variable that is the object of the conflict); the negative
feedback control is just becoming stronger (better control).
Positive feedback systems amplify; they don't really control.

Precisely this positive feedback mechanism was one of the reasons
I gave previously for favoring anarchy.

It's not a positive feedback system.

I'm still looking for what I entered this exchange for in the
first place: a good argument for the necessity of government--

Ah, No wonder you are unsatisfied. PCT can't tell you what
perceptions to have; it can only tell you what perceptions
are controlled, and why.

Best

Rick

···

--

Richard S. Marken Phone or Fax: 310 474-0313
Life Learning Associates e-mail: rmarken@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarken/

[Martin Taylor 990216 7:56]

[From Rick Marken (990215.2150) to Mike Acree (990215.1304 PST) --

Rick, you quote the following as if it were Mike's. It isn't. It is
mine, and I think you have misunderstood it.

The stronger thereby often gains strength, making it easier
to win the next conflict (this is very clearly seen when the
conflicted environmental variable is money). What we have is a
positive feedback process, and they lead either to explosion or
to a limiting condition.

It's a negative feedback process; there is a controlled variable
(the variable that is the object of the conflict); the negative
feedback control is just becoming stronger (better control).

Each individual in each individual conflict is in a negative feedback
loop. The stronger coerces the weaker and wins the conflict (e.g. getting
more mooney).

The argument is that in many such conflicts, especially those that involve
one party getting richer at the expense of the other, the winner of the
conflict is in a better position to win subsequent similar conflicts,
even conflicts against other people. Even when the conflict does not
involve money, learning successful strategies (reorganizing effectively)
means that the winner is more likely to win the next time. The positive
feedback is in that a slight imbalance in strength tends to be amplified,
becoming an ever-larger imbalance of strength. Jack the Rock becomes
John D. Rockefeller, and can successfully coerce just about anybody.

Positive feedback systems amplify; they don't really control.

Exactly the point. They amplify. That's why anarchy as a system is
unstable, and why the ones we see always succumb after a short while,
as Mike dolefully pointed out in a message a couple of weeks ago.
If conflicts led to the loser getting stronger for the next conflict,
there would be negative feedback that would keep the system stable, and
we might see other kinds of systems developing into stable anarchies
but never the reverse. Instead, what we see is occasional transitions
into anarchy or something rather like it, but some kind of government
always develops out of the anarchy. More often the form of government
that develops is a dictatorship, and PCT shows why this is so.

Democratic government is a relatively new idea in the world, only around
2500 years old, and the idea that everyone has a voice in it is much
newer, perhaps 100 years old. It's more stable than anarchy, but it's
still vulnerable to take-over in the same way, by the powerful gaining
more power as a consequence of the exercise of power. There has to be
a better way to construct a government, but we don't know what that
way might be. Large-scale simulations of interacting reorganizing
hierarchies might be a way to find out, but Nature has been conducting
that experiment for a long time without coming up with an answer.

Whether or not simulations could lead to the discovery of mechanisms for
"better" government, analytic PCT theory might do so. But first, the
criterion for "better" has to be decided. Different people have different
views on that. Some say that "better" means the opportunity for some
people to have no limits on their ability to control (implying that most
people have very restricted ability to control). Other people say that
everyone should have the same ability to control (which I suspect implies
that everyone has a very small range of perceptions they can control).
One PCT-based answer might be that "best" is the minimization of control
error summed over all the controlled perceptions in the entire population.

If that is a reasonable criterion, then there is one apparent fact and
two questions. The fact is (according to PCT), this criterion leads to
the lowest overall rate of reorganization among the individuals in the
population.

Question 1: Reorganization in individuals is always changing the conflicts
that occur among them, and therefore is always changing the overall
error rate in the society. Is this a stable situation in the sense that
the reorganization in individuals tends to restore the same situation
after other reorganizations disturb it--is it like the bottom of a bowl
being continually shaken, where the ball never sits but where it always
tries to return?

Question 2: Is there one unique distribution of ability to control that
is consistent with a stable situation, or do many such distributions
exists--or are there none?

There are probably lots of other questions. But I think an examination
of PCT is a more helpful approach to their solution than is an argument
between ideologies.

Martin

[From Mike Acree (990217.1101 PST)]

Bruce Gregory (990215.1705)--

Me:

I'm still looking for what I entered this
exchange for in the first place: a good argument for the necessity

of

government--understood in the usual, specific, political sense, and

not

just as hierarchical organization per se--or a good argument for why
anarchy wouldn't work--anarchy, not pacifism or chaos or the lack of

any

organization.

You'll excuse me for doubting that this is what you are looking for. It
seems to me that you have a well-defined position that you are

defending

against any disturbance. Mounting such a disturbance will not lead you
change your mind, but only to dig in deeper.

You're welcome to doubt, but I don't promise to excuse. That sort of
attribution is risky, being close to an insult which is not subject to
disconfirmation. At least, it's not obvious what you would take as
disconfirmation other than my changing my mind. I have made some
psychological attributions myself, in my post on liberalism
(990209.1650), but I also attached some mild tests of that conjecture
(which no one has challenged). I grant you that I have no evidence to
offer but my word, and I have also stated positions with deliberate
provocativeness, just as I would if I were totally convinced. But
anarchy is still a position to which I have been skeptically drawn
myself--I've never had any friends who were anarchists, for example, and
haven't read very much in support of such a position. But your comment
invites me to point out in return that my interlocutors are obviously
convinced at least as strongly of the necessity of government, despite
an unwillingness or inability to articulate any support for that view.

If anarchy is viable,
where are the anarchic societies?

And if PCT is a viable theory, why isn't everyone using it? I've
already suggested (990210.0920), in response to the same question by
Rick, that the answers are similar. Anarchy, as a political philosophy,
is new, especially in relation to industrial societies. I also offered
some speculation on why the concept of anarchy emerged only
comparatively recently.

Mike

[From Bruce Gregory (990217.1412 EST)]

Mike Acree (990217.1101 PST)

>If anarchy is viable,
>where are the anarchic societies?

And if PCT is a viable theory, why isn't everyone using it?

If you perceive these statements to be comparable there is nothing I can
say at this point that would be helpful.

Bruce Gregory

[From Mike Acree (990217.1100 PST)]

Martin Taylor (990215.1612)--

I'm sorry that I wasn't following your argument. I had some concern
that that might be the case, just because it wasn't clear to me that
what you said added up to any sort of challenge to what I was saying.
So I filled in the missing steps to create something relevant. Your
last paragraph in this post presents me with the same problem:

My "argument" if that's what it is, goes in quite different

directions.

It simply follows the consequences of believing in PCT so far as to
accept the hypothesis that reorganization tends on the whole to a

reduction

of the error in perceptual control throughout the individual

hierarchy.

If I understand it, it seems to imply that, for example, the French
Revolution--which I take as a massive "reorganization"--reduced error
throughout the hierarchy (whatever this is exactly in this case). That
seems to me in the first place not obviously true, and in the second
place not obviously relevant. I'm not happy being such a dunce, but one
doesn't always have much choice.

Martin Taylor (990216.0756)--

Jack the Rock becomes
John D. Rockefeller, and can successfully coerce just about anybody.

I don't think you can coerce anybody with money alone. The usual path
is that of Netscape or the dairy industry, to use your money to buy
legislators who coerce (an option not available in anarchy). It's
often, as in the case of Netscape, a tactic of the losers. If JDR did
that, I'm not aware of it.

Positive feedback systems amplify; they don't really control.

Exactly the point. They amplify. That's why anarchy as a system is
unstable, and why the ones we see always succumb after a short while,
as Mike dolefully pointed out in a message a couple of weeks ago.
If conflicts led to the loser getting stronger for the next conflict,
there would be negative feedback that would keep the system stable, and
we might see other kinds of systems developing into stable anarchies
but never the reverse. Instead, what we see is occasional transitions
into anarchy or something rather like it, but some kind of government
always develops out of the anarchy.

You evidently wrote this before reading my post that day, where I
clarified that I had never made such a claim about anarchies succumbing.
I believe I indicated that it was by no means impossible, but I pointed
to some checks against it happening. The only examples I know of
anarchies succumbing were to conquest by invaders. I know of no
instance of government developing out of anarchy without foreign
invasion, as happened in Somalia.

More often the form of government
that develops is a dictatorship, and PCT shows why this is so.

Yes, I think we agree on the positive feedback phenomenon.

Whether or not simulations could lead to the discovery of mechanisms

for

"better" government, analytic PCT theory might do so. But first, the
criterion for "better" has to be decided. Different people have

different

views on that. Some say that "better" means the opportunity for some
people to have no limits on their ability to control (implying that

most

people have very restricted ability to control). Other people say that
everyone should have the same ability to control (which I suspect

implies

that everyone has a very small range of perceptions they can control).
One PCT-based answer might be that "best" is the minimization of

control

error summed over all the controlled perceptions in the entire

population.

If that is a reasonable criterion, then there is one apparent fact and
two questions. The fact is (according to PCT), this criterion leads to
the lowest overall rate of reorganization among the individuals in the
population.

Question 1: Reorganization in individuals is always changing the

conflicts

that occur among them, and therefore is always changing the overall
error rate in the society. Is this a stable situation in the sense that
the reorganization in individuals tends to restore the same situation
after other reorganizations disturb it--is it like the bottom of a bowl
being continually shaken, where the ball never sits but where it always
tries to return?

Question 2: Is there one unique distribution of ability to control that
is consistent with a stable situation, or do many such distributions
exists--or are there none?

I'm actually uncomfortable with this whole line of reasoning; the
utilitarian approach of averaging over individuals feels contrary to the
approach of PCT. Definition of a criterion of "good" or "better" may
pull us into ideologies as well. I've appealed, explicitly at times I
think, to "minimization of violence" as the criterion; that was as close
as I could come, off the top of my head, to formulating the apparent
criterion by which Bill criticized punishment-based rule of law. But it
may be subject to the same objection; I wouldn't doubt that a better
(more PCT) one could be formulated.

There are probably lots of other questions. But I think an examination
of PCT is a more helpful approach to their solution than is an argument
between ideologies.

No disagreement there.

Mike

[From Mike Acree (990217.1102 PST)]

Rick Marken (990215.2150)--

Me:

Rick's argument...is as follows...: (a) Many complex tasks,
such as building a 747, require coordination through hierarchical
organization. (b) Any hierarchical organization is, or has,
government. (c) Therefore government is necessary.

This is not my argument. My argument (one aspect of it, anyway) is
that societies are collections of interacting input control systems.
"Government" and "anarchy" are words that refer to different states
of a perceptual variable (call it "governmental") that represents
aspects of the collective behavior of these control systems.

Then what was the 747 stuff about?

Me:

Possession of a legal monopoly on the use of coercion distinguishes
government from all the other kinds of hierarchical organizations
you mention;

You:

Coercion occurs whether there is a "legal monopoly" on it or not.
Coercion is control of the behavior of one control system by another
(stronger) one. Both governments (with a "legal monopoly on the use
of coercion") and non-governments (which have no such monopoly) can
coerce.

You miss completely the significance of the word _legal_. I never said
governments had a monopoly on coercion. I've denied it about six times,
including in the post you were responding to. Now it's your turn to
point out that coercion will still occur under anarchy, and we can go
around again.

I use the word "coercion" to describe the control of the behavior
of a weaker by a stronger control system. Assuming that the party
exerting "resistance" to control is stronger than the one trying
to control it then the one exerting resistance is doing the
coercion.

How often does someone try to coerce someone stronger? It does happen,
as with Hitler, but it's a good way to get your ass killed. Your
definition would imply that Hitler was not coercing Allied countries
when he invaded them, since they proved stronger.

If I decide
that it would be fun to let all the air out of the tires of your
Private Fire Dept. trucks I bet _someone_ would try to stop me
if they got wind of my plans. If they stop me then they have
coerced me; they are foring me to do something I don't want to
do (leave the air _in_ the tires).

You're usage of _coercion_ here is one you criticized when Tim and
others used it that way a year ago. Nothing wrong with changing your
mind about what the word means every time you use it, but it's confusing
when the changes are unannounced.

But it may be instructive to pursue this scenario hypothetically. The
possibility you usually bring up is that we shoot it out, but that would
occur only if you _really_ wanted the air out of my tires. If you
succeeded in letting the air out, and refused to pay restitution, I'd
take it to arbitration. (I might even if you simply tried.)
Theoretically the arbitration agency could decide for either of us. But
we don't need to consider any _should_s in relation to their decision;
PCT-style, we can look simply at what is likely to happen. If an agency
decides in favor of vandals, even just occasionally, how likely is it to
get any business? Would you patronize them if your own property were
vandalized? (I've already discussed the issue of evading arbitration
decisions.)

Me:

Restitution is a discriminable concept from punishment; and, as a
contract-based concept, I think it is compatible with PCT in a way
that punishment is not.

Punishment is just as "compatible" with PCT as restitution; both
are things that happen to or can be done by input control systems.

No doubt whatever people do or believe, it can be explained by PCT. But
it's a vacuous sense of _compatible_ that thereby makes PCT compatible
with S-R theory and everything else in the universe.

Me:

Given these definitions it's easy to see why [you] think B:CP
Chapter 17 is a celebration of anarchy and a condemnation of
government.

I think your reading just misses the main point of Ch. 17,

which is that _we are the problem_ because _we are controllers_.

Needless to say, I think _you_'re the one who still hasn't fully grasped
this point, so I predict no resolution on this one for a long time.

You:

anarchists . . . are advocating coercion as much as any advocate
of government regulation; they are talking about depriving people
of their freedom to choose non-anarchy.

Me:

That's not only total b.s.; it's another claim I've already denied
(990204.1440). I've said explicitly that in an anarchic society
you and your friends would be perfectly welcome to secede and form
your own dictatorship if you wish.

You:

But my friends and I don't want to secede; we want to take over.
Now what do you do? Or do we just not exist in your society?
You keep avoiding answering this question. The question is "how
do you deal with people who work against the rules of you anarchic
paradise"?

I hadn't perceived myself as avoiding the question; I hadn't perceived
the question. It is still incomplete, lacking a direct object: _what_
is it that you aspire to take over? State Farm? Starbucks? The Boy
Scouts? My house? There isn't any government to be taken over. That
is in fact one argument (perhaps not decisive) in favor of anarchy with
respect to defense: In a society with a government, and a
hierarchically organized military, if you capture just the
commander-in-chief you've got the whole country. We've been finding
lately that guerrilla wars, especially on enemy turf, are often harder
to win.

Your reference to "the rules of you anarchic paradise" makes it clear
that you're still thinking of anarchy as just another kind of
government.

I'm still looking for what I entered this exchange for in the
first place: a good argument for the necessity of government--

Ah, No wonder you are unsatisfied. PCT can't tell you what
perceptions to have; it can only tell you what perceptions
are controlled, and why.

I don't know what you're saying. PCT doesn't say I can't be looking for
something, and I wasn't looking to PCT to tell me what to look for.

but the strange thing is: that's what the author meant.

I don't believe that is what the author meant; I do think it's
what you desperately wanted the author to have meant because
you were committed to the wonders of anarchy before you knew
anything about PCT.

I refer you to the response I just gave Bruce Gregory on the same point.
In your case I can make an additional observation since you were at the
1994 CSG conference in Durango where I spoke (totally impromptu, at the
startling but very kind encouragement of Mary) about what I called
problems of scale, which I had just begun to think about. Bringing
together work by Joel Kaye and Theodore Porter, I argued that there was
a rather close parallel between the monetization of Western European
economies around the 12th century and the development of the concept of
scientific objectivity a few centuries later. I believe I went on there
to identify briefly the implications for political theory (unless I felt
I were taking too much time; I can't remember for sure); my intent in
any case was to pose a challenge to anarchy, which I assumed at that
time was advocated by all PCTers. My view then was that anarchy was
limited by the same problems of scale as barter and a personal knowledge
community: it seemed to me that it could work only in small,
face-to-face communities of mutual knowledge and trust; the anonymous
life of the city would be vulnerable to a serious maverick problem. No
surprise that my impression of anarchy would be so limited; I don't
think much has been written yet to address the question. But I later
came to think that I had given insufficient consideration to the
operation, and the stabilizing effects, of security or protection (and
arbitration) agencies, serving a geographically dispersed clientele.
The whole concept is still, of necessity, too much a figment of my
imagination for me to be fully confident of its viability, which is why
I was hoping for some mutual exploration of the possibilities. None of
this proves that I was "desperately committed to the wonders of anarchy
before I knew anything about PCT"--unless we can get hold of a tape from
the conference and find that I indeed addressed political theory
explicitly--but I think it ought to be enough.

Mike

[Martin Taylor 990217 15:00]

[From Mike Acree (990217.1100 PST)]

Martin Taylor (990215.1612)--

Whether or not simulations could lead to the discovery of mechanisms

for

"better" government, analytic PCT theory might do so. But first, the
criterion for "better" has to be decided. ...
One PCT-based answer might be that "best" is the minimization of

control

error summed over all the controlled perceptions in the entire

population.

If that is a reasonable criterion, then there is one apparent fact and
two questions. The fact is (according to PCT), this criterion leads to
the lowest overall rate of reorganization among the individuals in the
population.

Question 1: Reorganization in individuals is always changing the

conflicts

that occur among them, and therefore is always changing the overall
error rate in the society. Is this a stable situation in the sense that
the reorganization in individuals tends to restore the same situation
after other reorganizations disturb it--is it like the bottom of a bowl
being continually shaken, where the ball never sits but where it always
tries to return?

Question 2: Is there one unique distribution of ability to control that
is consistent with a stable situation, or do many such distributions
exists--or are there none?

I'm actually uncomfortable with this whole line of reasoning; the
utilitarian approach of averaging over individuals feels contrary to the
approach of PCT.

I think again you fail to follow the nature of the argument. The argument
is not based on any concept of utility. It is based on assuming that one
of the basic components of the PCT hypothesis is correct: reorganization
is more likely to happen within an individual if the individual is having
difficulty control perceptions than if the individual's perceptions are
well controlled. If individuals are likely to reorganize, the social
structure is likely to change, too.

If on average the individuals in a society are well able to control their
perceptions, then there will be few reorganizations in the individuals.
The through-other-people (i.e. "social") environmental feedback functions
for any one person will be more stable than in a society in which other
people are likely to reorganize more often. This provides the "fact" that
I stated. It's almost a tautology--the better on average the control of
perceptions among the individuals, the lower the overall rate of
reorganization.

The two questions ask whether the lowest reorganization rate is actually
compatible with a stable distribution of ability to control ("power" in
everyday language), and if it is, is there one unique stable distribution
or many.

Definition of a criterion of "good" or "better" may
pull us into ideologies as well.

The objective was to eliminate any question of ideology from the criterion
(other than an ideology "belief in the essential correctness of PCT").

I've appealed, explicitly at times I
think, to "minimization of violence" as the criterion; that was as close
as I could come, off the top of my head, to formulating the apparent
criterion by which Bill criticized punishment-based rule of law. But it
may be subject to the same objection; I wouldn't doubt that a better
(more PCT) one could be formulated.

I suspect that your criterion is close to one based on best overall average
level of control (lowest error rate averaged over all the perceptions
controlled by all the people). Why? Because conflict always implies
failure of control on the part of one or both parties, and conflict
often escalates to violence. Minimizing violence seems to be a side-effect
of maximizing average levels of control.

What a stability analysis would show is whether there is a stable structure
that leads to a "most contented" population, or whether we are likely
always to be in dynamic transitions between periods of democracy, anarchy,
and dictatorship.

Martin

[From Bruce Gregory (990217.1612 EST)]

Martin Taylor 990217 15:00

I suspect that your criterion is close to one based on best
overall average
level of control (lowest error rate averaged over all the perceptions
controlled by all the people). Why? Because conflict always implies
failure of control on the part of one or both parties, and conflict
often escalates to violence. Minimizing violence seems to be
a side-effect
of maximizing average levels of control.

What a stability analysis would show is whether there is a
stable structure
that leads to a "most contented" population, or whether we are likely
always to be in dynamic transitions between periods of
democracy, anarchy,
and dictatorship.

This reminds me of the current situation with the Kurds. It is
conceivable that a configuration with a Kurdish homeland would lead to a
"most contented" population, were it not for the fact that we would have
to reach this configuration by passing through configurations where
conflict was greatly exacerbated. The current situation may be a local
conflict minimum that is much less desirable than the global conflict
minimum.

Bruce Gregory

[From Rick Marken (990217.1440)]

Mike Acree (990217.1102 PST)--

Now it's your turn to point out that coercion will still
occur under anarchy, and we can go around again.

I have no idea why you think coercion will _not_ occur
under anarchy. Do people stop being control systems under
anarchy?

How often does someone try to coerce someone stronger?

All the time. Look at the Kurds trying to coerce the Turks,
the Palestinians trying to coerce the Israelis. Since the
weaker party's attempts at coercion are unsuccessful we see
them as being _coerced_ and their stronger opponent as the
coercer.

Your definition would imply that Hitler was not coercing
Allied countries when he invaded them, since they proved
stronger.

The ones he defeated were coerced; the one's who defeated
him coerced him. Coercion just describes the winning side
in a conflict over the state of a controlled variable.

Me:

If I decide that it would be fun to let all the air out of
the tires of your Private Fire Dept. trucks I bet _someone_
would try to stop me if they got wind of my plans. If they
stop me then they have coerced me; they are foring me to do
something I don't want to do (leave the air _in_ the tires).

Mike:

You're usage of _coercion_ here is one you criticized when
Tim and others used it that way a year ago.

Not at all. The usage of coercion that I criticized is the
one that says "coercion is not happening when there is no
resistance to the controlling efforts of the coercer". Here
I am saying that coercion _is_ happening when someone
successfully controls my "letting air out of the tires"
behavior, whether I resist this control or not.

If you succeeded in letting the air out, and refused to pay
restitution, I'd take it to arbitration.

Take it wherever you like; I'm still letting the air out
of the tires and I'm not paying any restitution;-) Are you
still going to refrain from coercing me?

Me:

But my friends and I don't want to secede; we want to take
over. Now what do you do?... You keep avoiding answering
this question. The question is "how do you deal with people
who work against the rules of you anarchic paradise"?

Mike:

I hadn't perceived myself as avoiding the question; I hadn't
perceived the question. It is still incomplete, lacking a
direct object: _what_ is it that you aspire to take over?
State Farm? Starbucks? The Boy Scouts? My house?

The whole enchilada.

There isn't any government to be taken over.

I know. So I'm establishing a government! I'm unestablishing
the non government (anarchy) you've established. I'm an anti-
disestablishmentarianist (finally, I got to use it!). I'm not going to
negotiate, restitute or play fair. You can negotiate
and arbitrate all you want but I'm not listening. Just keep
paying me taxes and you won't get hurt.

Your reference to "the rules of you anarchic paradise" makes
it clear that you're still thinking of anarchy as just
another kind of government.

Yes. That's my point. If you have no rules then apparently
there is no rule against me establishing a government and
forcing you to work for it. If there is no such rule then
you will not try to enforce such a rule. So when I establish
my government I haven't broken any rule and you won't try
to unestablish my government; you won't coerce me. In that
case, your anarchy is history because my friends and I are
now governing your one-time anarchy. Our government has rules
and one of them is that you don't mess with the government;
you certainly don't get to be an anarchist anymore; if you
do, you're toast. If you _do_ keep me from establishing my
government then you are coercing me -- giving the lie to
your claim that there is no coercion in an anarchy.

"Anarchy" is just a state of a controlled perceptual variable.
Unless everyone wants this perceptual variable in exactly the
same state -- the state you call "anarchy", say -- then there
will be conflict because people will be acting to bring this
perception to the state _they_ prefer. If one or more people
are strong enough to push this variable to the state they
prefer -- overwhelming the efforts of others to get that
variable to the state they prefer -- then these people
have _coerced_ the variable into that state.

Once you have a preference for _any_ particular state of a
perceptual variable that is also controlled by other people
then you are likely to get into conflict with those other
people. Since most people do seem to control a perception
of how they are organized then there is bound to be conflict
unless everyone maintains the same reference for this
perception (everyone wants to control for "anarchy' or
"monarchy" or whatever), which I consider highly unlikely.

Best

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken Phone or Fax: 310 474-0313
Life Learning Associates e-mail: rmarken@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarken

[From Mike Acree (990218.1220 PST)]

Bruce Gregory (990217.1412 EST--]

Mike Acree (990217.1101 PST)

>If anarchy is viable,
>where are the anarchic societies?

And if PCT is a viable theory, why isn't everyone using it?

If you perceive these statements to be comparable there is nothing I

can

say at this point that would be helpful.

Could well be, though I'm mystified by the reason. I had gone on to say
that what anarchy and PCT had in common was that they were both radical
new theories (anarchy understood as a political theory applicable to
industrial societies and not merely a tacit practice of precolonial
tribes). I have no idea what part of that is so disturbing to you.

Mike

[From Mike Acree (990218.1221 PST)]

Martin Taylor 990217 15:00--

I know this isn't supposed to happen on the Net, but your clarifications
were actually helpful, and I have no objection to anything you said. I
don't see that it gets us, in itself, very far toward resolving the
anarchy vs. government question, but at least maybe I can give up the
idea that you're expecting me to reach such conclusions directly from
what you've written.

Mike

[From Mike Acree (990218.1222 PST)]

Rick Marken (990217.1440)--

Me:

Now it's your turn to point out that coercion will still
occur under anarchy, and we can go around again.

I have no idea why you think coercion will _not_ occur
under anarchy. Do people stop being control systems under
anarchy?

Unbelievably perfect. I had just said, in the paragraph you quote:

I never said governments had a monopoly on coercion. I've denied it

about six times, including in the post you were

responding to.

The time previous to that goes all the way back to 2/15:

When I say that anarchy is unique in not _building in_ coercive

relationships, I am not saying--to repeat--that coercion > cannot occur
in an anarchic society. Nothing can guarantee that. Anybody can hold a
club over your head at any

time and demand your wallet. What I have said, and given reasons for

believing, is that anarchy can _minimize_ the > coercion in a society.
Rick also persists (e.g., 990210.1330) in equating anarchy with
pacifism, despite my

previously having argued that anarchy does not imply pacifism.

So there's your cue again for denying that anarchy can eliminate
coercion.

Rick, you've based your opposition to anarchy throughout this thread on
the equation of anarchy with pacifism. Then you think if you've shown
that people will respond to violence with violence that you've refuted
anarchy--when that claim was never in dispute. Pacifism is an
interesting position, but it's not one that I've ever tried to defend.
You cling to your straw man as though it were a teddy bear. I'm a
thousand times more interested in your objections to the positions I'm
actually articulating.

If you succeeded in letting the air out, and refused to pay
restitution, I'd take it to arbitration.

Take it wherever you like; I'm still letting the air out
of the tires and I'm not paying any restitution;-) Are you
still going to refrain from coercing me?

You are free to let to air out of my tires (if you're not forcibly
stopped by me or my agents), to refuse to pay restitution, and to refuse
arbitration. But I explained before why I think you're unlikely to do
this:

Me (990215.1304):

what happens when someone refuses to abide by the decision of the

arbitration agency (and assuming the process of > appeals to other
agencies has been exhausted). I've already answered that question, too
(990201.1100): Such a

person makes himself thereby an "outlaw," placing himself outside the

realm of negotiation and contract. Nobody

else will feel any obligation to honor contracts with him, and he will

have a tough time purchasing any insurance or

protection services. Most importantly, he would not be due

restitution for harm done to him, which makes it more or > less open
season for anyone who has a grievance against him. That seems a pretty
strong deterrent to flouting

arbitration decisions.

You:

But my friends and I don't want to secede; we want to take
over. Now what do you do?... You keep avoiding answering
this question. The question is "how do you deal with people
who work against the rules of you anarchic paradise"?

Me:

I hadn't perceived myself as avoiding the question; I hadn't
perceived the question. It is still incomplete, lacking a
direct object: _what_ is it that you aspire to take over?
State Farm? Starbucks? The Boy Scouts? My house?

You:

The whole enchilada.

Me:

There isn't any government to be taken over.

You:

I know. So I'm establishing a government! I'm unestablishing
the non government (anarchy) you've established. I'm an anti-
disestablishmentarianist (finally, I got to use it!). I'm not going to
negotiate, restitute or play fair. You can negotiate
and arbitrate all you want but I'm not listening. Just keep
paying me taxes and you won't get hurt.

If you're talking about Somalia, or sub-Saharan Africa in general, or
North America in precolonial times, then you're talking about not just a
theoretical possibility but a whole lot of the history of the last 500
years. But this observation doesn't take you anywhere unless you can
show that these anarchic tribal societies were intrinsically more
vulnerable to conquest than those with governments. It might be hard to
argue that conclusively one way or the other, but the evidence in favor
of government isn't overwhelming. The Incas had a highly hierarchical
organization, and they succumbed with astonishing speed: Once Atahualpa
was captured (by 150 men with horses and steel weapons, in a few days, I
think, Pisarro had the entire civilization at his command. Compare that
conflict with the Indians of North America, who had no single chief who
could surrender for all of them. The conquest took centuries, and not,
I believe, for lack of trying.

If you're talking about the modern U.S. when you refer to you and your
friends taking over the whole enchilada, then you're talking about
guerrilla warfare against 200,000,000 people (minus you and your
friends). I don't know how many friends you have, but 100,000 isn't
going to be nearly enough. All of Canada and Mexico teaming up together
would have a tough time.

It's satisfying, by the way, to see a good usage of
_antidisestablishmentarianist_! I've used it (in a similarly whimsical
spirit) in the draft of my book on statistics (referring to conservative
backlash against postmodern efforts to disestablish the Church of
Reason), but this is the first I've seen anyone else make good use of
it.

Mike

[From Bruce Gregory (990218.1534 EST)]

Mike Acree (990218.1220 PST)

I had gone on to say that what anarchy and PCT had in common
was that they were both radical
new theories (anarchy understood as a political theory applicable to
industrial societies and not merely a tacit practice of precolonial
tribes). I have no idea what part of that is so disturbing to you.

Perhaps you can tell me what data the political theory of anarchy was
designed to explain. I would then know what kind of data could be used
to test the theory. This is the same approach I take to PCT. (The
radicalness of either theory is largely irrelevant.)

Bruce Gregory

[From Mike Acree (990222.1417 PST)]

Rick Marken (990218.1510)--

What I have said, and given reasons for believing, is that
anarchy can _minimize_ the coercion in a society.

How does anarchy do this? Is anarchy a control system that
monitors the level of coercion in a society and acts to
lower the level of coercion when it goes above a reference?

I think you have it backward. Anarchy doesn't do (control)
anything; rather, anarchy may be the state to which a
society moves when the individual "doers" (control systems)
that make up that society figure out how to minimize the
use of coercion as the means of controlling the variables
they want to control.

As for anarchy being a control system or purposive agent, it certainly
is not. There isn't any overall monitoring or controlling agent. I'm
satisfied with your formulation that

anarchy may be the state to which a
society moves when the individual "doers" (control systems)
that make up that society figure out how to minimize the
use of coercion as the means of controlling the variables
they want to control.

My usage that you critique throughout this post is analogous to
statements like "PCT avoids the problems of reinforcement theory." We
all know, in a simple-minded way, that theories aren't control systems
and can't avoid anything. Occasionally we fall into traps of
personification, but I would generally have taken this sort of usage to
be understood.

It's a separate issue, and one not necessarily relevant to the question
of anarchy vs. government, whether governments or other organizations
are control systems. Bill has written, I believe, as though they were,
and that treatment made sense to me. I mention it only because it's
similar to the interesting questions of whether societies are alive.
Maturana and Varela proposed autopoiesis as the criterion of life, but
then famously disagreed on the question of whether societies were
living. Does anyone know what happened to that debate?

I'm not for or against anarchy.

This is disingenuous. At various points you've stated your support for
taxation, (forcible) redistribution of income, and minimum wage laws,
all of which I think you (correctly) perceive as impossible under
anarchy.

"Anarchy" is just a state of a controlled perceptual variable.
Unless everyone wants this perceptual variable in exactly the
same state -- the state you call "anarchy", say -- then there
will be conflict because people will be acting to bring this
perception to the state _they_ prefer.

This sounds like an uninteresting tautology (there's nothing else but
controlled variables), but, depending on what you meant, is either false
or misleading. There is no single perceptual variable for the society
which anarchists and government advocates are jointly trying to control.
Anarchists want anarchy for themselves, which is only to say that they
don't want to be forcibly controlled by others, and in particular they
don't want to set up an agency for the purpose of doing just that. But,
as far as anarchists are concerned, everybody else is free to choose
whatever system they want. Anarchists, virtually by definition, are
_not_ seeking to coerce others. Two-for-one special today, so I repeat:
Anarchists are not trying to coerce others. Government, however, being
a game that requires everybody to play, its advocates must coerce any
unwilling persons who remain within the territory. And, as I've pointed
out, they usually don't allow such people to escape: it's too obvious
what kind of people would leave. (Within the U.S. movement is easy, and
California taxes made it worthwhile for Tiger Woods to move to Florida.)
The issue of territory, in fact, gives this much truth to your position:
that if some residents in an anarchic society wanted to form a
government, some migration would probably be necessary: given that
governments are totally jealous gods, they could not tolerate anarchists
in their midst.

But I think you want to claim much more than merely the possibility that
some people would have to move in a transition between anarchy and
government. When anarchists seek to avoid coercion by others, you see
them (if I read you correctly) as coercing all those others who want to
coerce them. In this sense you are coercing all the robbers who want to
rip you off, and women are coercing all the men to whom they are denying
access to their bodies. Logically, a social system could be set up to
embody such a concept, granting equal consideration to your wish not to
be raped and to all the men who think you're good-looking. It's obvious
to whom such a system would appeal, and it looks like a pretty good
recipe for _maximizing_ violence. Under anarchy, anybody who wanted to
set up an arbitration or protection agency which favored rapists and
muggers, or even just treated equally their wish to rob or rape and your
wish not to be robbed or raped, would be free to do so. But, given that
contracts and disputes have two parties, I don't think they'll get much
business. Two years ago I spoke as though there were something wrong or
illogical about such a concept, thinking that that claim would be
uncontroversial; but there's perhaps no need to resort to such language,
when your concept of coercion will be a vastly harder sell, for those of
practically any political persuasion, than a concept which treats
rapists and victims, robbers and homeowners, as asymmetrically coercive.
I also don't see anything in PCT which entails symmetrical treatment of
trying to control others and resisting such control. Tellingly, Chapter
17 speaks of giving up the desire to control others but not of giving up
the desire not to be controlled by others. We know the former isn't
easy, but it may be easier than the latter.

Mike

[From Mike Acree (990222.1416 PST)]

Bruce Gregory (990218.1534 EST)--

I had gone on to say that what anarchy and PCT had in common
was that they were both radical
new theories (anarchy understood as a political theory applicable to
industrial societies and not merely a tacit practice of precolonial
tribes). I have no idea what part of that is so disturbing to you.

Perhaps you can tell me what data the political theory of anarchy was
designed to explain. I would then know what kind of data could be used
to test the theory. This is the same approach I take to PCT. (The
radicalness of either theory is largely irrelevant.)

I could say that PCT is a theory of how human beings work and anarchy is
a theory of how societies work, but that may be dignifying the latter
usage of the word _theory_ a bit too much. Differences between the two
"theories" are what's irrelevant in any case. The only similarities I
was claiming are newness and radicalness (understood in the sense of
profoundly different from the prevailing theories), and both of these
are relevant, I still contend, to the slowness of their acceptance.

Mike

[From Bruce Gregory (990223.0928 EST)]

Mike Acree (990222.1416 PST)

I could say that PCT is a theory of how human beings work and
anarchy is
a theory of how societies work, but that may be dignifying the latter
usage of the word _theory_ a bit too much.

So anarchy is a theory of how societies work. I must admit I'm lost. Is
the claim that societies are anarchic even though they do not appear to
be? Or are you claiming something else? I thought anarchy was a proposed
model of how a society _might_ work (much as communism is a model of how
a society might work). What am I missing?

Differences
between the two
"theories" are what's irrelevant in any case. The only similarities I
was claiming are newness and radicalness (understood in the sense of
profoundly different from the prevailing theories), and both of these
are relevant, I still contend, to the slowness of their acceptance.

I am not sure what is to be accepted. That an anarchic society is not
impossible?

Bruce Gregory