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I’m not aware of any venn diagram that logically entails centralism at the mention of the idea of a regulated society. A lack of enforceable norms or rules simply means anyone with the means can go in and impose his own on everybody else.
“Centralism” isn’t a synonym for “rule of law.” Centralism is a type of rule of law. And to be honest to quote Deng Xiaoping, “I don’t care whether it’s a white cat or a black cat so long as it catches mice.” The test of its success of governance is its overall pragmatism, not whether “centralism” or “federalism” or “localism” is right.
You like living in a society where the only limiting factor on that is how many guns someone has on the rack of the back of their pickup truck?
You just take your own biases for granted. You speak of "governance" as if it's a done deal already that an elected few have the last word on all aspects of how society is to be run. It's not.
What you call rule of law is the nationalist or liberal conception of the concept. One that's reasoned from first principles by administrators instead of being the mere codification of ancient custom. I don't see why I should grant more legitimacy to the former than the latter, except that I am forced to do so at gunpoint.
The HRE lasted 8 centuries when imperial governments tend to last 250 years on average, so I'm not taking lessons in pragmatism. The idea that the people who throw a fit when their high minded concepts of equality, rights and rule of law are not obeyed by all are pragmatists is ridiculous. The French Revolution was not a pragmatic political movement, it was a highly ideological coup.
All civilization is based on violence, why should I like your monopoly better than my competition when it actually makes bigger and more deadly wars?
I'd indeed much rather it be in many hands than just the hands of the State. Because i have seen the XXth century and I don't much enjoy being expropriated and exterminated because some guy had an idea.
I would've thought judging by results was good enough. Your reply to my original claim was that you liked the system you lived under, and yet it wasn't what I described at all. So what's the issue then? That I wasn't making an argument you wanted to respond to?
You obviously haven't perused much of my post history. I'm not faulting you for that, but this is just inaccurate because I am a staunch and ardent traditionalist and readily accept the latter. Again, you're not responding to my actual argument.
Civilizations and the maintenance of social order are ruled by the implied 'threat' of violence. Wholly unrestricted use of force versus regulated force is the contrast between living in a society and living in a civilization. All civilizations are societies but not all societies are civilizations. You can't have the latter without the former.
And I don't want to live in an anything goes society where my freedom and liberty extends only to what I can physically fight for an defend from someone else. You can live in a world where everything is up for grabs on a daily basis, I'll settle for a world where my neighbors and I are fine with not getting 100% of everything we want from each other but can live with each other in peace.
I take issue with the unearned dismissal of feudalism as a system of government that is all too widespread since the modern period.
I hold that it has many advantages and is actually a lot more workable, just and humane in the sort of world we are entering. And that far from being "corruption", the incarnation of power and pleasure of sovereigns is a far superior form of rule than the diktat of giant impersonal bureaucracies where nobody is accountable.
Given most of the West is ruled by the latter, the political vocabulary to describe this disagreement is poor and imprecise, and more a jumble of references to historical conflicts than a coherent ideological framework. You'll have to forgive me for this, I have no better substitute.
Imperial systems of government can very be traditional indeed. France will never be a patchwork of states for this reason.
Still, if you're a Breton a Basque or a Corsican, you have something to say against being ruled by someone else's tradition.
Well that's too bad, but it's how reality works.
This happens overtly or covertly but it always happens. I like lions more than foxes personally.
If you want to live in an anarcho-capitalist society that’s run by corporate feudal lords, have at it. I’m not against the idea of it working, but see it as highly unlike at worst and undesirable by most at best. Some people would do well. No doubt. Just as some people did well in Nazi Germany or Los Zetas does in Tamaulipas. Die hard libertarians may want to live in this society but normal human beings do not.
Normal human being don't really give a shit how things are run and go with the flow. In fact that's what so unnatural about liberal democracy is this constant demand of permanent and tiresome involvement in public affairs of a whole nation.
It's psychosis at this point. Youths gunning down public speakers is not the healthy marketplace of ideas that liberals envisioned.
People would be happier dealing with their local affairs. Moreover I believe both that the HRE was far less alienating than modern Germany to individual human existence and that this is not a tradeoff against technological progress.
I keep saying as much! People being tied to the land, borders being nice and tight, and everyone knowing their local ruler and their own place in society did wonders for getting people to actually feel at home.
This, however, I'd say is not entirely true. This extreme localism is at obvious odds with economies of scale. Maybe that's an acceptable price to pay in some lens, but it clearly wasn't competitive.
I think the internet and the nature of modern warfare change this calculus. But it's a larger conversation.
Can we have that conversation?
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