Island had anarchy roughly a thousand years.
Ireland in the middle ages (with exception for some savage local warlords)
Discussion
This was going to be the example that I brought up.
While not exactly leaderless, Pre-roman Europe was very decentralized and was mostly organized along family /tribal lines which seemed to work really well for quite a long time.
If there must be leaders, keep the groups small and very local.
I don't think that there's something wrong in having leaders.
Most need that.
If there's an option to opt out, I'm fine.
This is probably ideal.
This is what I have found with my little history knowledge. Tribes co-exists with other tribes fairly decentralised. But they always have leader to maintain order, safety, for shelter, food and basic transaction of economics with other tribes and to make sure everyone contributes.
Anthropologists have classified many types of non-state societies. Some non-state societies are also "acephalic" or leaderless.
Band and Clan societies are non-state and leaderless.
Weak Chiefdoms and Strong Chiefdoms are non-state but have leaders, elective or otherwise.
I can't remember where I first encountered this classification. Might have been "Seeing, Like A State" or "Against The Grain".
doesn't each clan has a leader or head of clan? if yes, that is still a leader even if it is stateless.
Not all clans did have a stated leader, and some only did for purposes of war.
I see. How are they thriving? Do they still exist today? If not, what led to the demise of this type of structure and what challenges they faced?
Very rare these days. Nation-states have subsumed most tribes behind arbitrary borders.
I've seen tribes in the Amazon but not sure if they still exist to this day. But they have leader and they made an agreement with the local gov't so they can co-exist. They do trade outside their tribe too.
As LIV noted, there are cases of leaderless groups.
I'm not opposed to distributed leadership. It can function well, in a high-trust community.
This.
Also, "distributed leadership" is a much more accurate term than the academic "acephalic" or "leaderless". Liked.
Joe's good at felling trees. Joe teaches others to fell trees and how to pick which ones to take.
Mary is very good with goats. She is the best person in the community to consult about goats.
The Beave is that crazy dude that lives on the mountain, but, if you need a crazy project to be built, he's the one to do it, and he teaches anyone that wants to learn how to weld to weld.
Distributed leadership relies of competence spread across many domains, which one person cannot master. If people value something, a natural distribution tends to occur, and if you can maximize the use of this competence spread, you can have most of your bases covered without having to delve into the nonsense of political hierarchies.
IMO.
And, for the record, this is the kind of community I seek to build.
Probably a pipe dream, but... I'm allowed.
Let's see if we go by this structure. How do you propose protecting the community from people or other tribes who wish to conquer the land?
Who is responsible for the order to avoid chaos within and outside the community?
Eg. Are we saying there MUST be specialised group to take care of this based on passion?
Are we assuming in this structure that everyone has the good intent? How do you forsee this type of community innovate if we each have our forte? Genuinely curious
Let's see if we go by this structure. How do you propose protecting the community from people or other tribes who wish to conquer the land?
Voluntary militias and mutual defense agreements. These are VERY effective. But, if the US is coming after you, you are going to have a very bad time. That's just how things go.
Who is responsible for the order to avoid chaos within and outside the community?
Ideally, external strife is external and IDGAF about that. Internal issues would be figured out via a variety of methods: duels, arbitration, etc.
Eg. Are we saying there MUST be specialised group to take care of this based on passion?
Nope. But... That tends to happen over time in a permissive group.
Are we assuming in this structure that everyone has the good intent?
Yes.
How do you forsee this type of community innovate if we each have our forte? Genuinely curious
With enough people, it would be very adaptable, especially with a shared mindset of innovation and cooperation. It takes a lot of work on relationships to build that kind of community.
I can see the potential of this type of structure. However, as you put it, if outside forces will come at you then you will be exposed and vulnerable. I can also see the challenge of isolating a community which may lead to a stand up with ill intent forces. Hence, it is crucial to have alliances but I am aware that alliances are double edge sword. There is also a question of who is taking care of the infrastructure? Eg communal buildings. If this is by volunteer then who is to agree how much to spend, what design and the logistics. The bottom line, human nature is complex. Sadly there is no straight answers nor did we learn much from our history. As we innovate, we became even more disconnected. Having said that, I still have strong hope for the humanity. The only way forward is to never stop persevering on the things we truly believe and in thr hope that we all get to the same conclusion. ☺️
It has been an insightful chat! Very productive open dialogue. I wish we are all like this. 👍💯👏
Human nature won't allow this for the long-term.
Define "long-term."
Like 100 years or so.
There will always be that one person who believes (through selfish concerns) that they have better intentions for the world than their ambitious counterparts. It's never proved to be true, imo.
That's fine in a distributed society with sound money and enough guns to keep your neighbors from doing anything too stupid.
You think? It could be true, but only in a society where all of our rights remain completely untainted from exterior forces. I don't see that happening.
It takes a lot of work to do that. I don't know how to truly build a community that lasts that long. But, I would try.
I'm with Nicholas Nassim Taleb on predicting the future.
If you want to do something and you know this has been done in the past and been stable-enough for millenia, then it can probably be done again with a few tweaks
Utopian/dystopian novelties like "luxury automated communism" or whatever the WEF is spruiking this year, not so much.
Yes, but there are other (and very unpredictable) matters to take into consideration such as the generational rate of technological advancement (outside of decentralized tech), how these advancements are utilized, the increase or decline in geopolitical tensions, and the global impact of decentrentralized technology. There's always the possibility that the stability which you're referring to may not last a millenia but a century and then be stalled by a decade or half of that. In short, an increase in the rate of technological advancement seems to have led to a decrease in length of peaceful cuktural engagement.
This is very true.
The administrative and logistical capabilities of a State to establish monopolies and sustain / expand itself in a society are determined by cultural, geographical and technological factors.
The last are quite within our power to re-engineer, hence the decentralised tech you speak of.
But the main battle is always ideological, and increased State monopolisation now is increasing State costs far faster than State revenues, so "by their fruits ye may know them" is going to be in our favour for some time :)
But the main issue is: how do we convince normies that their personal financial issues, their countrys political problems, and all their social dilemmas have been effectively created by the government and corps?
I say: "Mr Optimism! Make us some memes!" :D
Actually answer: I don't know, but I think its different for different people, and existing social / interest links make the message do through more easily.
I'll do my best to make a meme😅😁. Wish me luck.
It can’t be done. Normies will simply go with the flow, without regard to their status as slaves or free. We don’t need normies, or votes, or to “fix” society. We have inviolable private property, a technology that has never existed. Good luck to some ass clown statist cucks doing anything about that. My responsibility is to my family. That’s it. If only 1% of the population wants to live free, so be it.
I’m all for educating as much as possible, and reaching as many as we can but I don’t see it as necessary to get “normies”. If we get 1-2% of people, that will be enough.
Define "high-trust" community."
A community where you can leave your door unlocked, your bike in front of a shop, people leave money on the counter for goods, you don't need to ask twice for help, etc.
We won't be alive for that!😅 I hope you're correct, though.
Fukuyama's "Trust: the social virtue" is well worth a read, whatever you think of his later works.
I should add that to my too long list.
Fukuyama is very cautious and unwilling to be drawn in his conclusions, but his research is top-tier and he's a good writer.
I would go further than he, and say that based on his volumious gathered evidence, lack of trust in a society today is highly correlated with deliberate past government programs to destroy cultural capacities for building non-hierarchical non-intermediated social links.
Fix the incentives, fix the culture, fix the trust.
I've heard that about his work, though I've never read it.
I think your conclusions are very sound, from my perspective.