More Equal Animals: Independence by Design - Chapter 7 (Unofficial Summary)
People must be independent enough to and allowed to walk away or secede from any political body. The federation of states in the US was designed to be independent. To be independent, people must be self-sufficient or have many independent trading partners. The dilemma of buying at lower cost from Walmart instead of locally is that a community can lose independence.
Independent Money
“Maintaining control over community money is the single biggest thing a community needs to do to maintain independence.” Cryptocurrencies enable communities to control their own money, but still will rely on others for computer hardware. Gold, silver and platinum may be practical alternatives.
The Cost of Independence
The Amish is an example of self-sufficiency. More specialization can mean more dependence. It’s just as important for communities to be independent as it is for individuals.
Interdependence
Interdependence where neither party has advantage is not ideal because either party can become more independent. Companies often offer ‘free’ services early to get users to be dependent in the future.
Antifragility and Independence
Nassim Taleb has written about the idea of antifragility. Chaotic randomness can break fragile systems that depend on stability and antifragile systems grow stronger with stress. Hence, introducing regular disturbances and randomness such as random tariffs can be beneficial for individuals, communities and countries to build resilience.
Secession
“Independence is a necessary precondition for secession, and the ability to secede is necessary to secure independence. “”Failure to plan for secession is planning to fail.”
Ism Schism
The author most closely aligns with ‘voluntarism’, opposes ‘universalism: the belief that everyone must be governed by the same principles.’ The author describes his personal definitions of the ‘isms’ as follows:
Anarchism
Anarchism is the idea ‘we should live by rules and not rulers’, but another view is that Anarchism is based on the “law of the jungle, where might makes right.”
Marxism/Communism
“Marx provides a list of essential tenets of communism, namely:
• Central Banking
• Government-controlled education
• Government-controlled labor
• Government ownership of transportation
• Government ownership of communication
• Government ownership of agriculture and industry
• Elimination of private property
• Heavy income tax on everyone
• Elimination of inheritance
• Regional planning”
Both US political parties and the world seem to support much of communism in principle. “Therefore, communism can best be described by the intended outcome from the exercise of total control over everything. This outcome is an “equality in standard of living” for most people.” The dangers of ‘equality’ are described in Orwell’s book Animal Farm. Communism has the greatest wealth disparity between the ruling class and the people. Socialism less so and capitalism the least.
Socialism
“Socialism is commonly viewed as communism-lite“ and the “ “sharing the burden of life” through various “social” programs and safety nets.”
Capitalism
"The common definition of capitalism is an economic or political system where industry is controlled by private owners instead of the state." "Under capitalism, ownership is enforced by informal agreement with possession defended by jungle strength."
Libertarianism
“Libertarianism to describe the system of voluntary trade” , ‘defines property rights in advance’, use contracts and “follow the non-aggression principle”
Democratism
“Democracy is government derived from the ongoing consent of people as demonstrated by the right of secession.” “True democracy is about coordinating with other people while maintaining personal autonomy and power”