From 2aaad90cb50d1f4b566a6062074c4abc02529445 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: thepaperpilot Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 08:35:33 -0600 Subject: [PATCH] Updated content --- Garden | 2 +- site/garden/anarchism/index.md | 62 +++++++++++++++---- site/garden/consensus-democracy/index.md | 2 +- site/garden/individualism/index.md | 6 +- site/garden/my-political-beliefs/index.md | 2 +- site/garden/neoliberalism/index.md | 2 +- .../index.md | 7 +-- site/garden/social-constructs/index.md | 2 +- site/garden/technocracy/index.md | 2 +- 9 files changed, 61 insertions(+), 26 deletions(-) rename site/garden/{abolitionism => police-abolition}/index.md (99%) diff --git a/Garden b/Garden index 227b6229..9f6c856a 160000 --- a/Garden +++ b/Garden @@ -1 +1 @@ -Subproject commit 227b62298d24d0b6cb508c450ea8d967c8adcea7 +Subproject commit 9f6c856a83bca274f2dd097e5e8c00f9cf3f6312 diff --git a/site/garden/anarchism/index.md b/site/garden/anarchism/index.md index 1ae5091b..25a73e4e 100644 --- a/site/garden/anarchism/index.md +++ b/site/garden/anarchism/index.md @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ --- -alias: "Democracy, Egalitarianism, Anarchist, Democratic, Egalitarian, Anarchistic" +alias: "Anarchist, Anarchistic" public: "true" slug: "anarchism" title: "Anarchism" @@ -12,27 +12,63 @@ import { useData } from 'vitepress'; const pageData = useData();

Anarchism

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1043 words, ~6 minute read.

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1773 words, ~10 minute read.

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Referenced by:IndividualismLocal CommunitiesMy Political BeliefsRepresentative DemocracyTechnocracy
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Referenced by:IndividualismLocal CommunitiesMy Political BeliefsRepresentative Democracy
-I like and appreciate a lot of the anarchist values and would like to see them influence policy. Anarchists believe that states are inherently immoral, and societies should be structured to have as minimal of a hierarchy as possible. This entails focusing on [Local Communities](/garden/local-communities/index.md) and spreading power as thinly as possible, to avoid the possibility of individuals becoming corrupt and abusing their power. +Anarchism is a political philosophy centered around the idea that authoritative hierarchies are unjust, and aim for a society completely devoid of a state. Marx described how socialism, as it approaches its end goal of communism, would see the state naturally wither away, reaching anarcho-communism, just one of the flavors of anarchism. -Anarchism is anti-authoritarian, and explicitly denounces any use of violence to enforce rules, thus requiring [Police Abolition](/garden/abolitionism/index.md). By similar logic, anarchists tend to oppose imperialism and capitalism and the respective hierarchies they create. There are those who consider themselves "anarcho-capitalists" without realizing (or are ignoring) the hierarchies created by wealth inequality. These are incompatible views, and the person is likely actually authoritarian. +Broadly speaking, flavors of anarchism can fall into 3 categories: collectivist anarchism, which includes the aforementioned anarcho-communism; individualist anarchism, which are right-wing versions of anarchism based on [Individualism](/garden/individualism/index.md); and modern anarchism, which are adaptations of collectivist communism to include additional hierarchies, such as anarcha-feminism which seeks to abolish the patriarchy in addition to class hierarchy. I'm personally biased against individualist anarchism but align with the values present in many collectivist and modern flavors of anarchism. I believe an ideal society is one with strong [Local Communities](/garden/local-communities/index.md) that operate as a collective; spreading power as thinly as possible to avoid the possibility of any individuals becoming corrupt and abusing their power. -Democracy is a form of electoralism that is typically compatible with Anarchism, although some definitions of anarchism disallow any form of rules, even when agreed upon unanimously. There are different forms of democracy, with [Direct Democracy](/garden/direct-democracy/index.md) and [Consensus Democracy](/garden/consensus-democracy/index.md) being the most popular variants that are compatible with anarchism. The US government is a [Representative Democracy](/garden/representative-democracy/index.md), which is NOT anarchistic. Representatives abstract policy making from the views of the people. If we're supposed to vote on the representative that will most closely vote to how we feel on all issues, then the theoretical perfect representative would just be ourselves - and at that point, we should just be voting on the issues directly. Therefore if striving for anarchism, you should not use a representative democracy as in its theoretical ideal its still only just as good as any other variant of Democracy, and in practice will be much worse. +## Decision Making in Anarchy -A core principle of anarchism is "free association", referring to how individuals should be able to freely move between anarchist organizations to find one they're compatible with, or even frequently move between several communities they like. This can cause concerns of encouraging segregation, so I think its important for these communities to encourage diversity as much as they can. They can also refuse to associate with other bigoted communities, theoretically discouraging those bigoted views through social and material isolation. +Flavors of anarchy will differ on whether decision making should exist at all. Egoism, an individualist flavor of anarchism, argues against not only any kind of collective decision making, but against society itself. Collectivist flavors of anarchism typically allow for group decision making in some form. -Anarchistic organizations can still appoint roles to people. For example, if a nation like America were to be made anarchistic, it would likely maintain some roles of the President, such as that of Commander-In-Chief. It is primarily the law making and enforcing that would need to be democratized, and of course making sure those appointed roles are elected democratically. +Group decision making under anarchism is typically modeled after a flavor of democracy. Majoritarian democracy, or [Direct Democracy](/garden/direct-democracy/index.md) , is the idea that everyone gets a single vote and a measure passes if most people are in favor of it. A [Consensus Democracy](/garden/consensus-democracy/index.md) is the idea that measures should only pass if nobody is opposed to it. This typically means in lieu of voting, individuals can "block" a measure by saying they disagree with it in part of in whole, and the polity must then decide to drop the measure or tweak it until it can pass without any blocks. Some forms of consensus democracy will also allow for measures to pass despite a small number of blocks, for the sake of making it feasible without constant gridlock when scaling up. -Anarchism relies on the idea that there are enough individuals motivated to systemically fix problems that they will do so without direct personal gain (beyond the problem being solved), and that others will not block those efforts, even if the policy won't help them in particular. I believe this would and does hold true. I believe our society being filled with greedy individuals is primarily caused by our society rewarding greed. Without the profit motive and returning to a culture of collaboration and mutual aid, greed would for the most part become a non-factor in policy making. Those who are already at the top of the hierarchy don't want to lose their position, and have thus been propagandizing that hierarchies are necessary/inevitable, and even just. This concept gets discussed in [The Alt-Right Playbook: Always a Bigger Fish](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agzNANfNlTs). +There are criticism of group decision making as anti-anarchistic in any form. In both of these versions of democracy, the polity is collectively agreeing to have some form of rule or agreement in place, and once agreed to, an individual typically cannot rescind their consent to that rule or agreement. In majoritarian democracy, up to half the polity may have never even given consent for that rule in the first place. Even in consensus democracy, discussions will often break down into compromise and eventual resignation in order to get measures passed, which is not a "true" version of consent. Typically supporters of these decision making processes will justify them as necessary of a society to function. -Democracies where the people vote on individual issues are often criticized by citing the US' current low turnout rates during elections. I believe the rates are more indicative of a lack of faith in electoralism, and in any case its not a reason to be alarmed that policies would be dictated by a minority of the population. The low turnout can work in favor of direct and consensus democracies, as it means it only takes a few motivated individuals to improve society or block proposals that would worsen it. The fact getting engaged in politics takes time and effort means you're less likely to see people blocking policies in bad faith out of contrarianism. In theory, any consolidation of power would also negatively affect most people, which would motivate them to block the proposal. That makes anarchism very stable. +I'm personally a fan of consensus democracy. I agree with the justification that a society will naturally and necessarily contain social relationships that lead to things like compromises, and that "persuasiveness" is a permissible hierarchy out of necessity for society to exist. -In contrast to [Neoliberalism](/garden/neoliberalism/index.md), anarchism calls for systemic solutions to problems, rather than reliance on individual charity. In America, charity has never been sufficient to end hunger or homelessness. Anarchists and leftists believe we need systemic issues to these problems, such as making food, shelter, and healthcare freely accessible to all. Technology has made it trivial to provide for everyone. In America, there is more food waste than it would take to feed all the hungry, and enough vacant houses to shelter all the homeless. The scarcity is artificial, created by those at the top of the hierarchy. +### Democracy in Statist Society -Places of work can also be democratized! Typical American corporations are very hierarchical, with a few hands at the top having ultimate say over the company - what it does, how much it pays its employees, who it fires, etc. Worker's co-operatives are alternatives to corporations that are entirely worker owned and operated, with a flat hierarchy. This makes technology work in employees' favor, rather than owners' (since the employees are the owners). For example, lets say some technological innovation made employees twice as productive. Under a capitalist structure, the owners would have no reason to increase compensation based on the increased production, and in fact would be discouraged from doing so. They'd likely either use the increased productivity to sell more products, or half the workforce to cut down on significant expenditures. Under a socialist structure, the needs and desires of the employees are most important, so workers are likely to either see increased compensation due to their increased productivity, or reduced hours without a reduction in compensation. The co-operative could still decide to also just utilize the increased productivity without reducing hours nor increasing compensation, but the decision to do so would have been consensually made by the workers themselves, not their boss. +As a quick aside, some anarchists are critical of the term "democracy" here, as it may carry baggage of how democracy is implemented in a statist society, or disingenuously try to copy over the positive associations democracy has within western society. An anarchist would typically flat out reject any form of [Representative Democracy](/garden/representative-democracy/index.md) due to representatives inherently imperfectly abstracting the will of their constituency. They would argue representative democracy strictly gets better the closer you get to everyone having a representative that perfectly matches their positions on all issues, which is of course then equivalent to a direct democracy. -China recently enacted a [policy](https://www.taylorwessing.com/en/insights-and-events/insights/2024/01/employees-participation-in-corporate-governance-under-the-revised-chinese-company-law) to make all of its corporations operate democratically, with a "Employee Assembly" made up of up to 100 workers, that can decide on things like firing supervisors or, in big companies, appointing 1/3 of the board of directors. That goes a long way in democratizing the remaining private businesses in China. \ No newline at end of file +### Assigning Roles in Anarchy + +A flavor of anarchism that allows for group decision making typically also allows for roles to be assigned. If the group agreed that a specific person is in charge of making sure livestock don't escape, or another person is in charge of drafting a design for a new building being proposed, then that's completely fine. However, no person fulfilling a role should be considered un-replacable, as that imbues that person with unjust coercive power. That means roles should have redundancies and an answer for "what if this person threatens to stop performing their role unless we capitulate to their demands?" + +## Motivation Under Anarchy + +Anarchism relies on the idea that there are enough individuals motivated to systemically fix problems that they will do so without direct personal gain (beyond the problem being solved), and that others will not block those efforts, even if the policy won't help them in particular. I believe this would and does hold true. I believe our society being filled with greedy individuals is primarily caused by our society rewarding greed (see [Social Construct](/garden/social-constructs/index.md)s and Materialism). Without the profit motive and returning to a culture of collaboration and mutual aid, greed would for the most part become a non-factor in policy making. Those who are already at the top of the hierarchy don't want to lose their position, and have thus been propagandizing that hierarchies are necessary/inevitable, and even just. This concept gets discussed in [The Alt-Right Playbook: Always a Bigger Fish](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agzNANfNlTs). + +## Accountability under Anarchy + +Anarchy requires [Police Abolition](/garden/police-abolition/index.md), as a carceral state is, obviously, a state. There is no state sanctioned violence in a state-less society. With that in mind, if someone breaks a rule or otherwise acts anti-socially, the anarchist society will have to rely on other methods of accountability. + +Like prison abolitionists, anarchists would prefer systemic solutions to problems. If someone had to steal food from another at risk of starving, the solution is to ensure food (and other needs like shelter and healthcare) are accessible to all. Technology has made it trivial to provide for everyone; In America, there is more food waste than it would take to feed all the hungry, and enough vacant houses to shelter all the homeless. The scarcity is artificial, created by and maintained by those at the top of the hierarchy. + +After meeting everyone's needs, crimes should essentially go away. When accidents happen, there's no need for consequences but the community may make changes to help prevent accidents from re-occurring. If the incident was caused by someone's needs not being met (e.g. food or healthcare), then they should be supported rather than punished. For the remaining edge cases, there is typically reliance on social consequences. People are less likely to associate with someone with anti-social tendencies, and that person may eventually just have to leave the community if no one remains who is willing to associate with them. This should be exceedingly rare, however. + +## Scaling up Anarchy + +A core principle of anarchism is "free association", referring to how individuals should be able to freely enter and leave agreements between anarchist organizations. This is freedom to collaborate with whoever and however you like. These organizations are then typically considered rather ephemeral; temporary arrangements that can dissolve at any time as the needs and desires of those within the arrangement change. Scaling this up, it applies to communities/polities as well. A community can freely enter or leave agreements with other communities, and individuals can freely enter and leave those communities. + +One thing to be wary of with free association, is that it can incidentally support segregation. It's therefore important for communities to encourage diversity as much as they can, and refuse to associate with bigoted communities, theoretically discouraging those bigoted views through social and material isolation. + +## Anarchy and Capitalism + +The definition of individualist anarchism, one of the three categories defined in the introduction, is quite contested amongst anarchists. Some deny that its distinct from collectivist socialism, others claim it includes anarcho-capitalism, and yet others deny the capitalism is even compatible with anarchism at all. As the broad categories are just a [Social Construct](/garden/social-constructs/index.md) trying to make it easier to analyze different flavors of anarchism, I think its sufficient to say individualist anarchism is not really a useful term, as it typically needs clarification upon use of what individualist anarchism means to that author specifically. + +I will take a strong position in favor of the argument that capitalism is inherently incompatible with anarchism, though. Capitalism inherently forms hierarchies by introducing currency as a coercive force that is then required for continued survival. Anarcho-capitalism, the theoretical blending of capitalism and anarchism, argues for a stateless society with a market economy, effectively instituting laissez-faire economics. Anarcho-capitalism argues this market would regulate itself naturally due to the exchange of goods being purely voluntary, however this ignores capitalist incentives that would trend the economy towards wealth accumulating in the hands of the few. This creates a coercive hierarchy, which is not voluntary due to people's need for food, water, and shelter. The only way to avoid this unjust hierarchy would be with a form of regulatory body that would be nothing short of a state. Therefore, anarcho-capitalism is not compatible with anarchism, because despite their shared antipathy towards states, they do not share the underlying antipathy towards hierarchy. + +Anarcho-capitalists argue that their vision of anarchism is the only form that could possibly exist in reality, as any other form necessitates a state in order to handle things like the redistribution of private property. However, this argument itself implies the necessity of private property as a concept. Collectivist forms of anarchy such as anarcho-communism or mutualism demonstrate how economies can work without private property. + +## Anarchy in the Workplace + +Typical American corporations are very hierarchical, with a few hands at the top having ultimate say over the company - what it does, how much it pays its employees, who it fires, etc. Worker's co-operatives are alternatives to corporations that are entirely worker owned and operated, with a flat hierarchy. + +This dynamic means technological progress works in employees' favor, rather than owners' (since the employees are the owners). For example, lets say some technological innovation made employees twice as productive. Under a capitalist structure, the owners would have no reason to increase compensation based on the increased production, and in fact would be discouraged from doing so. They'd likely either use the increased productivity to sell more products, or half the workforce to cut down on significant expenditures. Under a socialist or anarchist structure, the needs and desires of the people are most important, so workers are likely to either see increased compensation due to their increased productivity, or reduced hours without a reduction in compensation. The co-operative could still decide to also just utilize the increased productivity without reducing hours nor increasing compensation, but the decision to do so would have been consensually made by the workers themselves, not their boss. + +China enacted a [policy](https://www.taylorwessing.com/en/insights-and-events/insights/2024/01/employees-participation-in-corporate-governance-under-the-revised-chinese-company-law) in 2024 to make all of its corporations operate democratically, with a "Employee Assembly" made up of up to 100 workers, that can decide on things like firing supervisors or, in big companies, appointing 1/3 of the board of directors. That goes a long way in democratizing the remaining private businesses in China. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/consensus-democracy/index.md b/site/garden/consensus-democracy/index.md index 7585bac1..196bea25 100644 --- a/site/garden/consensus-democracy/index.md +++ b/site/garden/consensus-democracy/index.md @@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ const pageData = useData(); A form of democracy similar to [Direct Democracy](/garden/direct-democracy/index.md) but with higher requirements for passing policies, typically requiring unanimity or near-unanimity. This helps reduce (although doesn't eliminate) the possibility of a majority group oppressing a minority group. -Consensus democracy encourages and requires innovative solutions to problems (similar to how [Police Abolition](/garden/abolitionism/index.md)) and pragmatic compromises. However, this can make them susceptible to "design by committee" and can make policies impossibly difficult to pass for large groups of people. +Consensus democracy encourages and requires innovative solutions to problems (similar to how [Police Abolition](/garden/police-abolition/index.md)) and pragmatic compromises. However, this can make them susceptible to "design by committee" and can make policies impossibly difficult to pass for large groups of people. Since consensus democracy doesn't scale well, larger governments could be structured as a federation of smaller governments. The smaller governments still use consensus democracy, but the federation only adopts policies that a super-majority of the smaller governments have agreed upon. Alternatively, the federation could specifically ask the local governments for policy proposals, then use [Direct Democracy](/garden/direct-democracy/index.md) to decide whether to approve it or not, still requiring a super-majority. diff --git a/site/garden/individualism/index.md b/site/garden/individualism/index.md index 7be7c894..bc77ee6b 100644 --- a/site/garden/individualism/index.md +++ b/site/garden/individualism/index.md @@ -11,12 +11,12 @@ import { useData } from 'vitepress'; const pageData = useData();

Individualism

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194 words, ~1 minute read.

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195 words, ~1 minute read.

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Referenced by:Local CommunitiesNeoliberalism
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Referenced by:AnarchismLocal CommunitiesNeoliberalism
-Individualism is a value system centered around independence and self sufficiency. It argues for taking care of oneself before others, and that it's wrong for people to be forced to take care of others before their selves, i.e. via wealth redistribution. This value system is antithetical to the [Anarchist](/garden/anarchism/index.md) values of community and mutual aid. I personally am against individualism and see it as against humans nature of cooperation. We're a social people and have for our entire existence relied upon each other. +Individualism is a [Neoliberal](/garden/neoliberalism/index.md) value system centered around independence and self sufficiency. It argues for taking care of oneself before others, and that it's wrong for people to be forced to take care of others before their selves, i.e. via wealth redistribution. This value system is antithetical to the [Anarchist](/garden/anarchism/index.md) values of community and mutual aid. I personally am against individualism and see it as against humans nature of cooperation. We're a social people and have for our entire existence relied upon each other. As a personal anecdote, I'm a recent parent and the whole "it takes a village" adage makes a lot of sense, and has made me hyper aware of how individualism has made it very hard to raise a kid these days. There's no 3 generations living in a house anymore, and suburbs are spread out and isolating, preventing strong [Local Communities](/garden/local-communities/index.md) from forming. To sum up, the "village" doesn't exist anymore. diff --git a/site/garden/my-political-beliefs/index.md b/site/garden/my-political-beliefs/index.md index 32a29efa..2e6768d4 100644 --- a/site/garden/my-political-beliefs/index.md +++ b/site/garden/my-political-beliefs/index.md @@ -30,4 +30,4 @@ I believe in maximizing personal liberties, so long as one is not actively harmf # Security -I'm against the use of violence by anyone, including the state. I believe in [Police Abolition](/garden/abolitionism/index.md) and am against the military and espionage both foreign and domestic. I believe in the [Anarchist](/garden/anarchism/index.md) value of free association, so I believe we should have fully open borders, both for travel and immigration/emmigration. I am anti-imperialist and believe in a fairly isolationist foreign policy, but am not against humanitarian foreign aid. \ No newline at end of file +I'm against the use of violence by anyone, including the state. I believe in [Police Abolition](/garden/police-abolition/index.md) and am against the military and espionage both foreign and domestic. I believe in the [Anarchist](/garden/anarchism/index.md) value of free association, so I believe we should have fully open borders, both for travel and immigration/emmigration. I am anti-imperialist and believe in a fairly isolationist foreign policy, but am not against humanitarian foreign aid. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/neoliberalism/index.md b/site/garden/neoliberalism/index.md index f1b558ec..ae3cf122 100644 --- a/site/garden/neoliberalism/index.md +++ b/site/garden/neoliberalism/index.md @@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ const pageData = useData();

133 words, ~1 minute read.

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Referenced by:AnarchismLocal CommunitiesTechnocracy
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Referenced by:IndividualismLocal CommunitiesTechnocracy
Neoliberalism is a conservative political philosophy that emphasizes [Individualism](/garden/individualism/index.md) and is resistant to change/progress. It became popular with the advent of President Raegan and his sweeping changes to the US economy and government (replacing the comparatively socialist polices of the New Deal and the Great Society), and affects both the Republican and Democratic US political parties. diff --git a/site/garden/abolitionism/index.md b/site/garden/police-abolition/index.md similarity index 99% rename from site/garden/abolitionism/index.md rename to site/garden/police-abolition/index.md index 959773bc..00e22b70 100644 --- a/site/garden/abolitionism/index.md +++ b/site/garden/police-abolition/index.md @@ -1,8 +1,7 @@ --- -alias: "Police Abolition" public: "true" -slug: "abolitionism" -title: "Abolitionism" +slug: "police-abolition" +title: "Police Abolition" prev: false next: false --- @@ -11,7 +10,7 @@ import { data } from '../../git.data.ts'; import { useData } from 'vitepress'; const pageData = useData(); -

Abolitionism

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Police Abolition

1493 words, ~8 minute read.

diff --git a/site/garden/social-constructs/index.md b/site/garden/social-constructs/index.md index f6a5de99..a7bbbd74 100644 --- a/site/garden/social-constructs/index.md +++ b/site/garden/social-constructs/index.md @@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ const pageData = useData();

1088 words, ~6 minute read.

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Referenced by:GenderGerrymanderingObjectivityPrescriptivism vs DescriptivismScientific ConstructivismTrans athletes in sports
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Referenced by:AnarchismGenderGerrymanderingObjectivityPrescriptivism vs DescriptivismScientific ConstructivismTrans athletes in sports
Social constructs are concepts with social definitions. Having a "social definition" really just means its some concept or property some group of peoples (or even animals) has prescribed meaning to. You know of and use these all the time throughout your life, and have likely identified some common ones like gender or class. As we'll discuss, however, there are far, far many more social constructs than the ones commonly referred to as such. It should be noted that while these concepts are essentially "made up", in the sense that they are arbitrary distinctions created by imperfect beings, that does not make them "not real". They exist and are typically created for a reason, often convenience. However, those reasons can be analyzed and determined to be more harmful than useful. This article's goal is to discuss and encourage analyzing social constructs, to better identify them and determine their utility and impact on society. Furthermore that it's possible to change or even destroy these constructs, and it's our social duty to do so when appropriate. diff --git a/site/garden/technocracy/index.md b/site/garden/technocracy/index.md index 0919e038..a6e4bff7 100644 --- a/site/garden/technocracy/index.md +++ b/site/garden/technocracy/index.md @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ const pageData = useData();

296 words, ~2 minute read.

-Technocracies are a form of government where technical experts make the decisions. It sounds appealing and like a solution to the "problem" of "How can [Democracy](/garden/anarchism/index.md) be good if most people are stupid?". Well I don't think that's really a problem in the first place, as it implies some sort of objective knowledge and truth, when really the best decision _is_ the one those affected by the decision most agree with. However, even under the premise that tyranny of the majority is a problem worth addressing, technocracies don't hold up under critical analysis. +Technocracies are a form of government where technical experts make the decisions. It sounds appealing and like a solution to the "problem" of "How can Democracy be good if most people are stupid?". Well I don't think that's really a problem in the first place, as it implies some sort of objective knowledge and truth, when really the best decision _is_ the one those affected by the decision most agree with. However, even under the premise that tyranny of the majority is a problem worth addressing, technocracies don't hold up under critical analysis. Who decides the criteria for technical expertise? Whatever the answer is will be introducing bias into the government, because true meritocracies are a [Neoliberal](/garden/neoliberalism/index.md) myth. Indeed, this government would likely just perpetuate people's existing material conditions, as those with power will have access to more resources, which means they'll be more likely to be able to meet the qualifications of technical expertise and thus remain in power. Conversely, those in poorer material conditions will be less likely to become technical experts, and thus have less agency to improve their material conditions.