The Socialist Dream Crumbles in Venezuela

[exploited]

It is truly stunning the lengths you will go to try and make sense out of your position.

Hunter-gatherers and mennonites were extremely homogenous societies. They shared a set of ethos that were rigorously passed down by oral tradition. Social conformity was very much expected - you didn't have Femen living peacefully beside heavily religious folk. To even attempt to use them as a basis for governing our society, which has a simply staggering amount of internal differences, is incredibly irrational. The Iroquois, for instance, captured children of their enemies and then assimilated them totally into their culture, destroying God knows how many distinct cultures in the process. And yet this is something we are supposed to emulate?

The stakes are also much higher. Humanity cannot afford to "reach a consensus." We will have nine billion people to feed by 2050, so we can't exactly just wait for everyone to come around before making important decisions. For instance, the global warming debate still rages, and there will never be a consensus on how best to handle it - but in order to prevent mass extinction, we need to take action now, and use all sorts of coercion to reverse the ecological damage we've done.

It is sheer idiocy to suggest that the real important questions of our time could possibly be solved by consensus, especially considering all your examples are of groups that have already been annihilated, or are slowly withering away. I mean, do you realize how utterly damaging the consensus model was to the Iroquois? How badly it hurt their chances of survival? It totally handicapped them in the American Revolutionary War, and consequently, the Confederacy was more or less destroyed.

As is obvious to the rest of us, consensus is a worthy goal - but it is sometimes simply impossible to achieve, particularly when you are talking about 300,000,000 culturally different people and not 12,000 fully assimilated Iroquois. The complexity of our society is so much greater than that of indigenous people four hundred years ago that it defies all logic to even suggest that what worked for them (or to be more historically accurate, what didn't work for them) will work for us.

You really need to look up the Great Binding Law before you spout off anymore BS about lack of coercion. Over 110 clauses, with banishment from the tribe being common place for those who disobeyed.

From "Great Law of Peace," Wikipedia:

Iroquois historian Elizabeth Tooker has pointed to several differences between the two forms of government, notably that all decisions were made by a consensus of male chiefs who gained their position through a combination of blood descent and selection by female relatives, that representation on the basis of the number of clans in the group rather than the size or population of the clans, that the topics discussed were decided by a single tribe.

[The Dharma Bum]

Your reference clearly says they arrived at decision through consensus.

No, it is ridiculous to think a socially destructive organizational methodology will be the most productive or even sustainable.

Once again I ask:

How is solidarity, essential for the existence of a classless society, to be achieved without consensus?

Show your work. Show examples that actually prove your thesis instead of the one you are arguing against. Don't bother with straw men or telling me how stupid or crazy I am. Those aren't valid arguments.

[The Dharma Bum]

How about this, list some of the institutionalized coercive social structures that existed in Iroquois society.

Did they have prisons, schools, a military draft, private property, wage slavery, patriarchy or anything like that? I'm pretty sure their society consisted of voluntary associations. There might be an example that shows otherwise though so if there is name it.

What were they coerced into doing? Give an example of the Iroquois government enforcing mass compliance within their population with their political ideology through force. How were they coerced into doing things against their will? Were they forced to be productive machinery by their society? Was there taxattion or anything like that?

Let's hear it. Because so far you have a whole lot of nothing to back up your supposition that coercion is an essential component to the human social dynamic and that human society cannot exist without coercion. The fact that coercion free societies in exist right now ought to settle the argument but for some reason it hasn't.

[exploited]

This is ridiculous. Just read the laws of the Iroquois. It is perfectly obvious that their idea of consensus is utterly different than the sense you are using it in:

Should it happen that the Lords refuse to heed the third warning, then two courses are open: either the men may decide in their council to depose the Lord or Lords or to club them to death with war clubs. Should they in their council decide to take the first course the War Chief shall address the Lord or Lords, saying: �Since you the Lords of the Five Nations have refused to return to the procedure of the Constitution, we now declare your seats vacant, we take off your horns, the token of your Lordship, and others shall be chosen and installed in your seats, therefore vacate your seats.�
Should the men in their council adopt the second course, the War Chief shall order his men to enter the council, to take positions beside the Lords, sitting between them wherever possible. When this is accomplished the War Chief holding in his outstretched hand a bunch of black wampum strings shall say to the erring Lords: �So now, Lords of the Five United Nations, harken to these last words from your men. You have not heeded the warnings of the women relatives, you have not heeded the warnings of the General Council of women and you have not heeded the warnings of the men of the nations, all urging you to return to the right course of action. Since you are determined to resist and to withhold justice from your people there is only one course for us to adopt.� At this point the War Chief shall let drop the bunch of black wampum and the men shall spring to their feet and club the erring Lords to death. Any erring Lord may submit before the War Chief lets fall the black wampum. Then his execution is withheld.

So if a member refuses to give consent, he could be summarily executed for not adhering to the laws of the tribe. You will find contingencies that allow for coercion in literally every consensus-based society, because it is absolutely necessary in certain circumstances.

[The Dharma Bum]

[The Dharma Bum]

Also the great law of peace was conceived in 1720, well after their society had been heavily influenced by European culture, which is pointed out in the article, as well. Part of the reason for this change in their society was to deal with the Europeans.

[exploited]

Lol. So you're saying that the founding law of the Confederacy, which calls for men to be beaten to death if they disobey the law, is not a coercive institution?

Jesus Christ. The delusion is strong in this one.

Also, it is pretty clear that you are racist as f**k, lol.

[exploited]

85. Whenever a war against a foreign nation is pushed until that nation is about exterminated because of its refusal to accept the Great Peace and if that nation shall by its obstinacy become exterminated, all their rights, property and territory shall become the property of the Five Nations.
86. Whenever a foreign nation is conquered and the survivors are brought into the territory of the Five Nations� Confederacy and placed under the Great Peace the two shall be known as the Conqueror and the Conquered. A symbolic relationship shall be devised and be placed in some symbolic position. The conquered nation shall have no voice in the councils of the Confederacy in the body of the Lords.

[exploited]

88. When the proposition to establish the Great Peace is made a foreign nation it shall be done in mutual council. The foreign nation is to be persuaded by reason and urged to come into the Great Peace. If the Five Nations fail to obtain the consent of the nation at the first council a second council shall be held and upon a second failure a third council shall be held and this third council shall end the peaceful methods of persuasion. At the third council the War Chief of the Five nations shall address the Chief of the foreign nation and request him three times to accept the Great Peace. If refusal steadfastly follows the War Chief shall let the bunch of white lake shells drop from his outstretched hand to the ground and shall bound quickly forward and club the offending chief to death. War shall thereby be declared and the War Chief shall have his warriors at his back to meet any emergency. War must continue until the contest is won by the Five Nations.

[The Dharma Bum]