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Eric Roosevelt · 05-09-2009, 07:41 PM

It seems like freeing oneself from authorities feels like a very natural goal for most people. Very few people like to be dominated.

But then we have the problem that a lot of institutions and corporations that provide important governing functions or basic goods (such as food and housing), still rely on systems of authority. As has been noted by many people before me, we often need to co-operate very carefully on a very large scale in order to keep the basic functions of society running. At the end of the day we can't act like we live in bubbles and don't depend on each other in different ways.

Is the solution to this problem some sort of voluntary association, where all co-operation is ensured to be between consenting people who have agreed to work in a certain way? How would that work?

Or is the solution perhaps to try to democratize all institutions and corporations in order to break down the systems of control?

How can you maximize the freedom of individuals within a corporation, for example? Could a corporation even function properly if you removed the people in charge?

It seems to me like the freedom of individuals is an important goal, but that ideas about voluntary association (or even things like voluntary socialism) always need to rely on the assumption that individuals will choose to carry out the same sort of tasks they're doing right now, but without anyone ever telling them to do so.

In other words, if maximizing the freedom of the individual is a worthwhile goal, we seem to have a lot of practical problems that would need to be solved along the way.

What are your thoughts on this?

05-09-2009, 07:41 PM	#1 (permalink)
Eric Roosevelt Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 708	Voluntary association It seems like freeing oneself from authorities feels like a very natural goal for most people. Very few people like to be dominated. But then we have the problem that a lot of institutions and corporations that provide important governing functions or basic goods (such as food and housing), still rely on systems of authority. As has been noted by many people before me, we often need to co-operate very carefully on a very large scale in order to keep the basic functions of society running. At the end of the day we can't act like we live in bubbles and don't depend on each other in different ways. Is the solution to this problem some sort of voluntary association, where all co-operation is ensured to be between consenting people who have agreed to work in a certain way? How would that work? Or is the solution perhaps to try to democratize all institutions and corporations in order to break down the systems of control? How can you maximize the freedom of individuals within a corporation, for example? Could a corporation even function properly if you removed the people in charge? It seems to me like the freedom of individuals is an important goal, but that ideas about voluntary association (or even things like voluntary socialism) always need to rely on the assumption that individuals will choose to carry out the same sort of tasks they're doing right now, but without anyone ever telling them to do so. In other words, if maximizing the freedom of the individual is a worthwhile goal, we seem to have a lot of practical problems that would need to be solved along the way. What are your thoughts on this?