[ExI] Is there a potential libertarianism / democracy tension?

[Stefano Vaj]

2011/9/28 Amon Zero <amon at doctrinezero.com>

> I just have a fascination with situations where a stance can in fact imply
> its polar opposite, taoism-style, and wondered if this might be one such
> situation, with a desire for personal liberty leading some people down a
> road where they would deny the wishes of most others. I'm not saying that
> would be indefensible, per se - just that it would be very interesting, I
> think.
>

So have I. In principle, I am temperamentally quite libertarian, but have a
pretty different ideological background, which suggests that unless
collective liberties and self-determination, such as that concerning the
abilities of choosing one's constitutional and legal system, are taken into
account, "freedom" risk to be limited to a sociological equivalent of
Brownian gas molecular movements, molecules moving in all directions but
basically not going anywhere.

I suspect that an interesting, albeit tentative and limited, reconciliation
of those two ideas might be what once went under the say "voting with your
feet", and which in the "virtuality" age may take an altogether metaphorical
sense. That is, especially once territory and control thereof becomes
(again) less important in defining political communities than other forms of
affiliations, one does not really see why, even from a libertarian POV, a
group of people should be prevented from defining boundaries and internal
rules the way it prefers, and Darwinian mechanisms should not be trusted in
keeping such rules as "efficient" and "honest" as possible, be it in very
diverse ways of functioning and competing.

This is one additional reason, btw, to see globalisation, in its ability to
enforce conformity with universal social norms, as a threat more than an
opportunity for any kind of posthuman and post-"traditional politics"
change.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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