[Lnc-business] Food for Thought

Sun Sep 4 18:33:33 EDT 2016

	Thanks, David! Don't get me wrong, I still think Uber and other large peer-to-peer technology firms are on balance a good thing. I just think Lyft and other smaller ride-share companies are probably an even better thing. The competition from smaller players also makes the bigger players better.

	From a political perspective, I believe Libertarians benefit from being seen as championing the underdogs, the little guy. But that's not the reason we should be their champion. We should do it because it's the right thing to do, because it's philosophically in accord with the libertarian decentralist approach. Large concentrations of power tend to be antithetical to the goal of empowering individuals, and it's hard to maintain a society based on individual rights if individuals are not empowered.

Love & Liberty,
                                  ((( starchild )))
At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee
                                (415) 625-FREE

On Sep 4, 2016, at 8:46 AM, David Demarest wrote:

> Starchild,
>  
> I fully agree with your concerns about the size of large corporations including Uber, although the “cut out the middleman” virtue of Uber ameliorates some of my concerns about large peer-to-peer technology firms.
>  
> Thank you for planting the seed for the following article regarding the virtues of voluntaryism and the evils of authoritarianism and institutionalism.
>  
> Thoughts?
>  
> *******************************
>  
> Voluntaryism is a philosophical and political movement that seeks to counter the evils of authoritarianism and institutionalism by bringing authority down to the level of the individual. This article explores the relationship between authoritarianism, institutionalism and voluntaryism.
>  
> Institutions represent an easy way out for those who surrender to the temptation to abdicate personal responsibility for competitive productivity in the free market in order to protect themselves and provide for their own welfare. This temptation is exemplified by two types, those who escape the responsibility for personal productivity by accepting the authority of others over them and those who replace the responsibility for personal productivity by assuming the mantle of authority over others.
>  
> Institutions come in all sizes and purported purposes. The major institutions include governments, religions, criminal cartels, corporations and labor unions. However, any joint action by more than one person can be considered an institution. Institutions can have a number of morally justifiable reasons to exist. Predictably, however, as the size of institutions grow, they become increasingly vulnerable to the evils of authoritarianism and self-subjugation that this article seeks to connect the dots on.
>  
> The positive aspects of institutionalism are many. Institutions are an extension of family values where a limited amount of authority is appropriate to protect and nurture children as they learn and gradually assume personal responsibility. Institutionalism also opens opportunities for collaboration that can multiply productivity and leverage the potential to build on the shoulders of others as we learn, increase institutional knowledge and accomplish mutual goals. The virtues of institutions as the size of institutions grow, however, diminish rapidly and are offset by glaring failures that have tragic consequences for society.
> 
> Individual entrepreneurs are the antithesis of institutionalism and authoritarianism. The fallout from individual entrepreneurs abdicating their responsibilities is swift and certain – personal failure of their entrepreneurial effort. Institutionalism and authoritarianism, however, offer a tempting escape from the personal responsibilities and risks of entrepreneurism. Unfortunately, that escape comes at a price. The downside consequences of institutionalism and authoritarianism are numerous and predictably result in less productivity, less personal satisfaction, less self-esteem and the temptation to collude with other institutions to use cronyism to offset competition from more productive smaller institutions and individual entrepreneurs.
>  
> Institutional reliance on cronyism, exacerbated by our compulsory majority rule made possible by our permission for government’s coercive aggressive-force monopoly, is destroying our way of life, and if unchecked will lead to a predictable and tragic cyclic collapse of society. How can we leverage the advantages but avoid the pitfalls of institutionalism and authoritarianism?
>  
> The challenge we face is how to optimize the balance between size, personal responsibility and the nature of the contract between institutional partners. “Partners” is the key word. Institutions that rely on authority-subjugation relationships are at a competitive disadvantage compared to more productive flat hierarchy collaborative partnerships. In terms of societal governance, voluntaryism is the epitome of broad-scale relationships appropriate to those who choose to limit institutionalism and authoritarianism to collaborative partnerships between individual private contractor partners working together for mutual benefit.
>  
> ************************************
>  
> Politicians are for TODAY – Entrepreneurs are for TOMORROW – Libertarian Philosophers are for the AGES!
>  
> ~David Pratt Demarest
> Secretary, Nebraska Libertarian State Central Committee
> Region 6 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (IA, IL, MN, MO, ND, NE, WI)
> Nebraska State Coordinator, LP Radical Caucus
> DPDemarest at centurylink.net
> David.Demarest at firstdata.com
> Cell:      402-981-6469
> Home: 402-493-0873
> Office: 402-222-7207
>  
> From: Lnc-business [mailto:lnc-business-bounces at hq.lp.org] On Behalf Of Starchild
> Sent: Saturday, September 03, 2016 10:13 AM
> To: lnc-business at hq.lp.org; Michael Pickens <michaelpickens at lpwa.org>; Patrick McKnight <patrick.joseph.mcknight at gmail.com>; Leigh LaChine <Leigh.LaChine at LPAlabama.org>; Kimberly Ruff <kim.ruff2016 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Lnc-business] Food for Thought
>  
>             Great stuff David, thanks for sharing! Love the Arundhati Roy quote – that is going into my quote file. And I'm with you on basically everything else you say here.
>  
>             One piece of additional food for thought, though – and to the extent it's a criticism, it's of myself as well, because I have often done the same thing – It's generally to hold up the Ubers, the Airbnbs, and the Googles of the world as our examples, because they are the big companies with which we and others are most familiar.
>  
>             But we should consider that lots of voters focus on Clinton and Trump for similar reasons! And the effect of doing so is similar in both cases: It reinforces the dominance of the big players at the expense of the little guys who are often more libertarian.
>  
>             The larger and more established a company is, the more likely on average it is to be in collusion with the State and to exhibit other un-libertarian characteristics. Of course there are exceptions, but as a rule I think it's safe to say that smaller businesses tend to be more pro-freedom in their business practices.
>  
>             How many small businesses, to use one example that's a pet peeve of mine, make a practice of automatically recording your phone calls without your consent when you call them up, and not even giving you direct access to those recordings should you want to listen to them later? I have yet to encounter a small, local business that does this. Conversely, it seems rare these days to find a big corporation that doesn't violate your privacy in this manner.
>  
>             Thus when talking about the sharing economy, I might try to cite Lyft instead of Uber, Misterbnb instead of Airbnb, etc. There are likely other even smaller competitors that would be even better to cite, if we take the time to learn their names.
>  
>             Anyway, the idea of undercutting government with bottom-up, voluntary, and peer-to-peer type solutions is definitely one we should keep in mind as we develop goals and strategy.
>  
> Love & Liberty,
>                                  ((( starchild )))
> At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee
>                               (415) 625-FREE
>  
>  
> On Sep 3, 2016, at 6:13 AM, David Demarest wrote:
> 
> 
> Food for thought:
> 
> 
> “Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories.” – Arundhati Roy
>  
> To paraphrase Arundhati Roy’s inspiring quote: “Our strategy should be not only to confront empire”, we need to understand that when we limit ourselves to a top-down legislative election strategy, the empire has the decided advantage. A top-down strategy confines us to playing on their turf and the empire is too good at it. Do we really want to become ruling authorities too? No, that is what we are fighting against. But you say, how can we defeat the evil empire if we do not get candidates elected?
>  
> Our best strategy to level the playing field and overcome the empire is to undercut it. To bypass it. To circumvent it. To do an end run around it. To delegitimize it. To make it irrelevant by taking back our empowering responsibilities. We need to outperform the empire, not by relying solely on a top-down election tactic, but by pursuing an even more powerful strategy, the bottom-up approach. We must throw our moral support behind a voluntary bottom-up grassroots entrepreneurial peaceful freedom revolution fueled by peer-to-peer technology and peer-to-peer voluntary-society concepts.
>  
> Our bottom-up strategy starts with social media that cuts out the empire middleman in the communication of ideas. Social media gives all of us the freedom to digest unfiltered information and especially our young that will become our future leaders. As we leverage social media, our peaceful revolution will catch fire with peer-to-peer mobile apps like Uber that thrive, no surprise, by also cutting out the empire middleman. The peer-to-peer genie is already out of the bottle and the evil empire cannot put it back in without the risk of strangling their ill-gotten source of revenue. The authorities know they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. The only strategy left to them is to ignore it and hope that it will go away. We must not and will not let that happen.
>  
> We need to celebrate the “Uber-ites” among us, employ their powerful and empowering keys to freedom and become independent peer-to-peer entrepreneurs in our own right. Then and only then will we open the top-down door to elect Libertarians at all levels of government that will quickly put themselves out of business as they dismantle the empire.
>  
> As we hammer the empire with our bottom-up peer-to-peer fist, the specter of authoritarianism will fade away into history with our shout of freedom ringing in their ears: “May the peer-to-peer force be with you!” – David Pratt Demarest, September 3, 2016
>  
>  
> The War on Majority Rule Cronyism Begins NOW
>  
> ~David Pratt Demarest
> Secretary, Nebraska Libertarian State Central Committee
> Region 6 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (IA, IL, MN, MO, ND, NE, WI)
> Nebraska State Coordinator, LP Radical Caucus
> Cell:      402-981-6469
> Home: 402-493-0873
> Office: 402-222-7207
>  
>  
>  
> 
>  
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