To make the update of the Forum
bidirectional, here is one post on this subject that appeared only in
the Forum:
Re: Anarchism and Direct Democracy
These are the main differences between this form of Anarchy and
Direct Democracy as I understand them:
In Anarchy, there are really no public services in the traditional
sense. All services, including police and fire are done by private
companies that form to handle such needs for their community. Companies
are owned and managed democratically by their employees, rather than as
an owner with employees. For example, if you want police protection you
pay one of the local police companies in the area to provide the
service for you. Anarchy is like a combined political and economic
system.
Direct Democracy has public services, but they are initiated and
decided upon by all voters rather than representatives. The downside is
that you pay for services that the majority of voters want, even if you
don't have a personal interest in them. It doesn't specifically address
the economic system, but private companies would have almost no
political influence, and voters can limit the power of companies that
are anti-competitive.
My issues with anarchy are that it doesn't adequately address issues of
public good. For example, I feel it's important for me to help pay for
schools even though I don't have children because it's an important
public service. Very large projects such as building a new interstate
freeway would be difficult to manage as well.
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My reply to it:
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Re: Anarchism and Direct
Democracy
Date: August 21, 2007 11:41PM
The question of public good is an interesting and important one.
It would be good if some anarchists could answer it directly. I am
personally not sure that they have a universal plan how to organize
community services, such as the police service through local private
police companies as Warren presents it. First, there would be no
private companies but only public companies (i.e., cooperatives managed
by those who work in them). Thus a public company in a sense
automatically provides a "public" service. Second, I would expect that
due to the Decentralization, every community could have a somewhat
differently organized police and other community services as it would
suits best each particular community.
The the Federation arrangement of decentralized communities could
take care of dealing with the large-scale projects mentioned, and also
of the public good on regional and more global scales.
In any case, the attitude of people to 'public good" is and will
continue to be determined by the level of education of citizens, which
can only be expected to be improved in a free society.