Free exit is a core concept for me, and seems to be the primary safeguard individuals have against an the absolutely sovereign state.

The best way to run the 82nd Airborne, for example, is not by democracy or committee, but by appointing a single military commander over them with near-totalitarian authority. How is this individual selected, and how long does he serve in his position? Good militaries with long histories have had to develop and refine successful commander-selection mechanisms, processes and institutions.

The same goes for corporations which could, theoretically, organize their governance in almost any way they saw fit. It turns out that the institution which evolved and which has been most widely adopted (because recognized as efficient, effective, and competitive) is the Joint Stock Corporation, with a Board of Directors and a (replaceable) CEO accountable for performance and incentivized in a manner consistent with the organization’s priorities. That’s usually economic profits, but there are well-managed non-profit corporations run this way as well.

Neither of these individuals is an Absolute, Permanent, Hereditary Monarch, though, while they are in charge, they typically enjoy much more authority and flexibility (and thus effectiveness and rationality) than what exists in modern governments.

One of Moldbug’s insights was that a lot of the frustrating craziness you see in modern governments of all kinds is the result of desperate attempts to acquire and maintain a weak hold on power in the short-term in ways uncorrelated with actual effective governing with an eye on the long-term. Abusing one’s power to distribute spoils to your supporters and repression on your opponents (usually including taxing them to pay for the spoils), is the classic tactic.

The only way around this problem is to make any executive either completely and permanently secure in his authority (like a monarch), or, preferably in my opinion, to make that security contingent on his performance, competence, and effectiveness at delivering on the organization’s mission. In other words, you solve the principal-agent problem by creating an incentive structure that aligns interests.

Again, organizations that have had to survive competitive pressures (institutions like profitable corporations and the military) modified their own internal governance regimes as part of that struggle to survive and they have tended to agree and converge upon an understanding of the necessity of unity of command, plenary authorities, and security and compensation aligned with rational measures of performance.

That’s governance that actually works well. Not perfect, but well, with the better kinds tending to take over the market-space, because customers and investors with options will ‘exit’ the inferior. Our national government does not work well. But there is no real competition or exit. If we want national governance that works well, then it will need to have those features, and also the kind of structure and leadership selection mechanisms above.

You might be interested in Andrei Tarkovsky’s films (and book). He was a student of religious history and ethics, and these are major themes of his work. ‘Offret’ would be particularly relevant, although it is his least accessible film.

‘Solaris’, although less apropos, is another interesting one from the perspective of political philosophy. I think it has a lot to say about distributed order, the relationship between intellectuals and the masses, and other problems that lie in our future and past. (It strikes me as a dark satire of 1920s Russia, although reviewers don’t seem to see it that way.)

Regarding libertarianism, protection of property rights is a high abstraction that only rules out extreme and primitive types of oppressive polity. Attempts by economists such as Ronald Coase to reduce the concept of property rights to a determinate formula have not been sound.

Libertarianism is just one of the better memes of mass politics. Anyone with half a brain can grasp the basic idea–private property good, other stuff bad–but politics and law evidently are not simple problems, otherwise we would already have excellent solutions. Lots of careful thought is necessary in order to sharpen and adjust a nebulous libertarian idea into something that creates real positive change.

http://www.xenosystems.net/questions/#comment-26712

I started writing something, but I’m hung up on this “communal ecstatic fraternity” business. I would like to be able to compare different religions on this basis, but I don’t know whom to ask or how to articulate the question.

I’m currently reading Stephen Prothero’s _God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World — and Why their Differences Matter_.

Well put and succinct. Stolen!

http://home.earthlink.net/~peter.a.taylor/autopsy.htm