Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!timbuk!cs.umn.edu!dmshq!com50!craig
From: craig@com50.c2s.mn.org (Craig Wilson)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Anarchy
Message-ID: <1990Dec2.034108.28769@com50.c2s.mn.org>
Date: 2 Dec 90 03:41:08 GMT
References: <1990Nov21.031701.18701@com50.c2s.mn.org> <S4476.7@xds13.ferranti.com> <21881@well.sf.ca.us>
Organization: Com Squared Systems, Inc.
Lines: 26

In article <21881@well.sf.ca.us> nagle@well.sf.ca.us (John Nagle) writes:
>
>     Historically, anarchy doesn't work; it breaks down into banditry or
>feudalism.  

I have been contending for a long time that what we have now IS close to
feudalism.  But it is a flavor of feudalism where the peasants have a lot more
freedom of speech than what one normally would assume to be the case.  And
since the duke is either away or napping at a lot of the nodes, that makes it
possible for the rest of us to feud all we what.  This gives many people the
false impression of anarchy on the Usenet.

As for the banditry route, maybe that is what will come of the talk
to impose a "tax" on the entire Usenet to pay for the testing and distribution
of comp.sources.unix.

>But computer-mediated anarchies can work, as we see with
>USENET and FIDO.  This is a major suprise.  Suprises like this are rare
>in the history of human behavior.  A new way for large numbers of 
>people to do something together over a considerable period of time has been 
>found.  The previous development in that direction was the invention of the
>stock corporation, and that changed the world.  

This sounds like a discussion for another time.

/craig