Witt's thoughts are in TLP 6.3111. — frank

I'm looking at the TLP and don't see that sentence.

6.3 Logical research means the investigation of all regularity. And
outside logic all is accident.
6.31 The so-called law of induction cannot in any case be a logical
law, for it is obviously a signicant proposition.And therefore
it cannot be a law a priori either.
6.32 The law of causality is not a law but the form of a law.*
6.321 Law of Causality is a class name. And as in mechanics there
are, for instance, minimum-laws, such as that of least action, so
in physics there are causal laws, laws of the causality form.
6.3211 Men had indeed an idea that there must be a law of least action, before they knew exactly how it ran. (Here, as always,
the a priori certain proves to be something purely logical.)

Mkay. I'm wrapping back around to this in my thoughts:

Since you don't know how to answer:

What would make me believe that the actual world has properties attached to space because I'm the one that's in the world? — Moliere

What made you believe that the actual world has properties attached to space because you're the one that's in it?

Mostly wanting to stay on point with the question about space having properties.

A possible world is an abstract object. It's stipulated. — frank

So is the question more about "How do I make an inference from possibilities to actualities"?

If there are no people in a world, and it has directionality, that directionality is come from you. — frank

Does it?

We're talking about a possible world here, not a world. We're imagining possibilities with some pretty abstract concepts.

How could I differentiate an actual world? What would make me believe that the actual world has properties attached to space because I'm the one that's in the world?

Imagine a possible world in which there are no people. Are there directions there? Only from the point of view of someone outside that world who can establish a reference. — frank

When I imagine a possible world without people with directions then there are directions in that imagined possible world, and when I imagine a possible world without people without directions then there are not directions in that imagined possible world.

Yes. It has to do with the fact that you're peering out of a body with ears that produce a sense of up and down. Left and right follow from that. Space doesn't come with a left and right. — frank

I don't think that left and right follow from myself having a body with ears, though I know we have a sense of our own orientation from our somatic responses.

My "left" could be your "right", depending upon what my culture taught me as I grew up. It's not so much individual-body, but the social-body which these distinctions depend upon to my mind. (consider the case of feral children -- what "left" or "right" did they have? And doesn't chirality -- left and right handed objects -- still exist in their world without being able to utter it?)

Fair question, though that's sort of the thing I puzzle through still. I don't have a direct answer. I might even bother to write that one down if I had a direct answer.

"Left" and "Right" seem very obviously conventional, just like "up" and "down" -- anything relative to a speaker. It's more like a name for a direction from yourself -- like an angle, but less precise -- than an ontological category.

I'd say it's convention. I was taught which was what.

I'm not sure that has ontological import though.

Ahhh x-posted your link.

I don't think points have chiral properties. Only some geometric shapes have chiral properties, and these are close to some of the things we consider to be real.

"Space" is an odd duck, conceptually. But I'm not sure handedness is the right avenue given that there are even mathematical descriptions of chirality -- the mathematical description would satisfy Kant, I think? Though https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23274573/

This looks far too rosy to me.

You ever plot something you think is linear and found out it ain't?

The problem with such predictions is a change in one thing leads to a change in rate which is connected to another change of rate which might not be about the linear relationship being described (and often isn't)

I signed up. (it's definitely an easier way to do voice conversations, as we've been floating but failed to accomplish)

but did he also make the parallel with “Existence is not a predicate”? — J

I'm not sure if it predates Kant, but Kant is famous for making this assertion.

Thinking about a unicorn I know what properties it has, but thinking about a unicorn that includes existence as one of its properties adds nothing conceptually: the unicorn has to be "given", and so "existence" is not a predicate.

That's a very good test. It's not perfect. Some people have very poor imaginations and worse memories. I remember, in the small town that I lived in a while ago, there was a recession and a number of people lost their jobs. They got very annoyed about the welfare system - not much money, ill-mannered and unhelpful staff. When they got jobs, they forgot all about it and reverted to moaning about high taxes and the idle poor. — Ludwig V

:D -- Yeah. That seems a case if the fundamental attribution error -- those people are poor because they are lazy, whereas I am poor because of circumstances outside of my control: Character for thee and circumstances for me.

I'm still trying to work out what that refers to. It doesn't reflect anything I know about and I can't find anything obvious in what the reference sites say. — Ludwig V

For myself I was conceding the point to say how even if it's true I know that if I were one of the Greeks -- at least in the Veil of Ignorance type sense -- that it's pretty unlikely I'd think being dominated did me good.

Like you said here:

The Romans, therefore did not bring peace and prosperity - the Greeks were doing quite nicely on their own, thank you. — Ludwig V

More generally I'm skeptical that entire empires or cultures can take or give to one another in any sense other than a historian's narrative -- while I think there are social entities, and social ontology is one of the things I puzzle over, I'm uncertain that there really is such a thing as a whole Empire with its own properties as much as historical evidence can be arranged empire-wise. The story, in that case, has more to do with the storyteller than the events.

Though, at the same time, we can't do without this narrative aspect -- it's the sweeping, big narratives that I'm skeptical of here; so in some sense to concede that Greek Culture was given a Mediterranean empire for free because their culture was absorbed and spread across the Mediterranean after being dominated is to say, sure, we can put the story this way, but if I apply the Veil of Ignorance thought experiment in thinking about the being in the Greeks position I don't believe it matters too much if some historian later down the line comes along and synthesizes a big narrative which happens to include my culture as a character in it.

Basically the cost of being conquered isn't worth the prize of being a main character in a history later down the line, at least when I think through it from the position of the veil of ignorance.

That seems reasonable. But I feel that they are rather weak on the role of co-operation in making life worth living. — Ludwig V

I'd say anarchists are more pro-cooperation than liberals tend to be, but I'd contrast this with liberalism's ability to build lasting social institutions.

Liberalism not only preaches individualism but reinforces it through its distribution of individual property rights.

Anarchists believe in individual needs and individuals, but that they are a part of a wider community -- rather than a bundle of self-interested individuals anarchists build collectives of cooperation which are intentionally built through collective decision-making and consensus building.

We cooperate for the same reason any human being cooperates -- because you can do more together than you can all by yourself. The anarchist only wants more freedom for everyone in building that "doing more together".

Well, everybody accepted that. The point of war was to get rich quick. — Ludwig V

Yeah. Still seems to be the case, though I like to think that we can work on moving beyond "Everybody accepted that"; in some sense to recognize that we don't have to accept some things which everyone has always accepted as the way things are.

Of course. Nothing changes, except the way people dress up what they're doing. Hope is all there is. — Ludwig V

I do think things change, actually -- it's just not a sweeping Progressive narrative, per se. And they can change for the better. The only way I know of in which this happens is when regular people get together to demand change, though. It takes effort and planning, but it can be done.

In a way, yes. Their culture was maintained and cultivated. The once divided city-States unified completely and because of that managed to fight off Eastern invaders for centuries, when it barely managed to do so before that, in the Persian war. Basically, Greece was given a Mediterranean empire for free when, the only time it managed to do something like that, the whole thing collapsed before a single generation passed. — Lionino

Whenever I think about whether some group of people is better off or not due to a social action I think to myself: would I be willing to be on the receiving end?

I can say that as an individual I don't have deep ties to whether the Eastern invaders are defeated. If anything, these seem to be the things that are wrong with our societies: the desire to dominate will lead to endless suffering that need not be.

Greece may have been given a Mediterranean empire for free, but if I were greek I'd have preferred to not be dominated.

Though, of course, the Greeks had already accepted this sort of conquer-or-be-conquered ethos; in some sense it's deserved because it was the same thing they'd do to others.

My suspicion is that ethos still has reflections today which, rationally speaking, need not be the case.

I can wait until I have more if you'd like. I was trying to follow an old rule of mine wherein if I post to one person I'll post to everyone else by the end of the day.

I waited to respond to you last because I've been reading over your posts and thinking a lot, not out of disinterest.

You have this notion of "power" as the social good to be distribute. And you mean power in the restricted sense of the power to dominate (as opposed to the power to submit I guess) — apokrisis

No I don't mean this at all.

Power is not a dirty word. Power is important.

An Anarchist FAQ is a good resource for thinking about hierarchy in the sense I've said.

Anarchists care about power more than liberals -- though less than warlords, who want it all for themselves (in a hierarchy, one might say): anarchy is not opposed to power at all as much as wants it to be directed according to what human beings want, rather than a class of deciders.

I think what you're missing is that, in large part, they can't. — Leontiskos

Why not?

whenever a civilizer comes along somehow the civilized end up worse off and helping the civilizer live an easier life — Moliere

One of the things about using whole empires as an example is it will be terribly vague whom counts as a civilizer and whom counts as the civilized over the course of an Empire's life. The examples I've used are much smaller than these historical entities to a point that I don't think they're exactly comparable examples.

The history of empires always reads like World History to me.

I'd say my examples are more in the vein of social history.

Just to put some names out there for marking differences of approach -- I don't think we're being so grandiose as to actually be doing history here rather than talking and thinking out loud.

The first question that came to mind was: Were the Greeks better off when the Romans conquered them?

What would it mean to "put slavish souls into a biological category"? — Leontiskos

To say that slaves are essential different from masters due to the kind of creature they are. One could justify saying "this person has a slavish soul" by saying "this person has bad habits that could change", which would be a psychological rather than a biological category. But Aristotle justifies it by tying it to their essence as creatures: their whole teleology is to be bound to a master who directs them in physical labor.

Yes. They used the same argument to justify enclosures in England as well. It's a case of finding a weapon, not the truth. — Ludwig V

Yes! Been reading a book covering some of that time period which is why the example is on my mind.

"incompetence" is a legalistic term, but it includes permanent conditions like Down's syndrome as well — Ludwig V

Okiedoke.

Permanant conditions aren't the same thing as character, I'd say. "The Irish are lazy" is a judgment of a person's character on the basis of class-inclusion: All Irish are lazy. Shane is Irish. Shane is lazy.

"Shane has Down's Syndrome" is a medical classification which may entail various legal things depending on the legal system. Shane has to have various symptoms and a medical professional to prove such things for various legal entailments.

In the former you have policy-wizards dreaming up ways to change the bad character of a group of people. In the latter you have a person that needs to be recognized by a professional body in a different way.

(EDIT: At this point I've relied upon her so much I ought cite her -- https://www.amazon.com/Hijacked-Neoliberalism-against-Workers-Lectures/dp/1009275437)

Yeah.

I don't deny that for a minute. I just think that we should acknowledge that his version wasn't based on race. In other words, the 18th century version not only attempted to justify slavery, but did so on racial grounds. — Ludwig V

Yes. That's not in itself wrong - we do the same thing when we classify certain people as incompetent. What matters is what happens next. — Ludwig V

Yes I'm being anachronistic -- there are some differences that are worth noting: Aristotle didn't use 18th century racial categories, and the practices of slavery were different between the eras.

And I have some work to do on what counts as a proper theory of race in order to make this point -- I'm reading in-between the lines with a generic notion of race which seems to have a conceptual match.

The concepts that are similar enough (and since they're embedded in a larger philosophy they're more interesting that some plantation owner who makes the case):The way he talks about slaves in the passage I quoted. Going back to proletarinizing the Irish (so, not even a case of slavery, in the practices, but it's still the same kind of cruelty and reasoning I'm thinking through): The character of the Irish is that they are lazy and so must have their land taken from them so that English capitalists of better character force them to be productive for their own good.

I don't think that we make the same judgment of another person when we say they are incompetent because we're not judging whether their character is such that they are naturally incompetent: it leaves open the possibility of learning, as well as not making inferences about people who are of the same kind having such-and-such a character.

This Aristotle guy was smart, wasn't he? Except when he disagrees with my enlightened 21st century politics, of course. — Lionino

He was!

Why target low hanging fruit when the articulation for slavery that Aristotle uses is much the same as later articulations, and has an entire philosophical oeuvre within which to interpret the argument?

Really it might not even be Aristotle Aristotle that's the target here, but rather English interpretations of Aristotle (it's not like I'm going back to the Greek here, nor could I): He's the foil through which I'm thinking about hierarchy rather than addressing him in his own time and place due to the argument being largely the same, and clearer than most slavers are willing to articulate.

There are multiple examples in history where that was not the case. — Lionino

I'm skeptical of such claims because of how often they are made, and how often "better off" is measured by the civilizers' values.

What examples do you have in mind?

I'm not denying that. On the contrary, in the 18th century, a lot of the gentry would have read Aristotle. But Aristotle does not specify that speaking a foreign language or not being a Greek is evidence of being suitable for slavery. — Ludwig V

Not specified, sure -- I'm reading into him. I don't think it unreasonable to think that Aristotle prefers Greeks of the upper echelon, though, when we read the politics in conjunction with the ethics and note that goodness is the exercise of virtues within the larger biopolitical world.

It's his mixture of biology with politics that is really close conceptually to the race-based reasonings for slavery: he doesn't explicitly put slavish souls into a biological category, but their essence differs from other members of the species giving a sub-species "kind" with essence; I take it that no one can actually perceive a slavish or masterful soul, that there must be markers for that, and things like being non-greek would work for that.

explain it in terms that are relevant as any kind of counter to what I might have said. — apokrisis

That's why I asked for criteria of some kind.

I suspect that your notion of hierarchy, when descriptive, is not the same as what I'm targeting. The idea that a program or system has hierarchies, for example, isn't the same as social hierarchy.

Do you ask to hold someone’s hand every time you need to cross the road? Clearly I’m wasting my time now. — apokrisis

I'm scratching my head a bit because I think I've given concrete examples before, like the IWW.

Among other sentiments about what I like.

What I'm asking is: What do you like?

Or, What's good?

Eventually we get to the political meat - like why the combo of a constitution and a president (or even law-bound monarch) seemed like a clever idea. — apokrisis

I think this is a "meat" question for scientists who wonder how it happens or want to know the facts about the human brain -- but it would be the same question in China as the United States and Europe.

It's an interesting question -- why did Europe like this clever idea? -- but it's not a political position.

So you say. So you find comforting to believe.

But I asked for concrete examples that might support your vaguely expressed sentiments. As usual, I’m just getting more unsourced claims. — apokrisis

Can you give me criteria for what a concrete example would need to fulfill?

So not good vs bad hierarchies, just hierarchy in general. Boo, hiss! Hierarchy, dude! It's baaad! — apokrisis

Yeah!

I have reasons and all, but that's it -- though it seems, given your previous caveat, that we're thinking similarly while saying different words: You have a particular thought on hierarchy, but I'm not sure that I have a negative opinion on your notion of positive hierarchy because when I read your description of society -- as a flow -- it seems descriptive and descriptive only and I cannot tell what might even be the "good" hierarchy.

I'm generally opposed to hierarchy, but: What is the good hierarchy in your view?

If you could give a concrete example, it would help show if you might have a case. — apokrisis

Gonna quote the original post I was mulling over in saying that:

If we step back to understand hierarchical order as a pure form, we can see that it is a distribution system. It is a way to distribute power, information, entropy, whatever, in an evenly balanced fashion across a closed and cohesive network of relations.

So it is fundamentally about equality. But the complex kind of equality where the total flow of the system is divided up in a fractal or scalefree fashion that maximises its throughput.

A landscape is drained of water by forming a fractal network of trickles, streams, rivers and deltas. World aviation is organised into remote grass airstrips, small rural airports, large city airports, major international hubs. The mathematics of this is precise. A fractal distribution system has a log/log or powerlaw scale of size. That is how a geography can be efficiently covered so every drop of water or wannabe flyer gets an equal chance of participating in a well-organised network of flow.

There is no limit on free action even when all the actions are in competition. The network adapts so that statistically it services the available flows in an evenhanded fashion. If demand increases for the rural airstrip or drops for the global hub, then that node in the network can grow or shrink accordingly.

So in the pure form, the hierarchy is about a democracy of scale. A network composed of networks with any possible scale. Whatever works best to optimise flow for the entire system in question.

In a society, we would want everyone to have enough to eat, a bed to sleep, a voice in any decision making. These are goods to be distributed evenly. But then a real world civilisation is not going to end up giving everyone the same meal, the same bed, the same degree of being listened to.

A rural airstrip is not going to have a VIP lounge, or customs officers, or nonstop flights to international destinations. A global hub becomes its own vast hierarchy of terminal facilities and job functions. If you want a weather report at the grass strip, you look up at the clouds. At Dubai or Chicago, there are teams of meteorologists with hi tech radars, monitoring stations and computer models.

Is this difference in airport facilities intrinsically unfair? Even artificial rather than natural? If you want to fly, the whole world has become efficiently organised to allow anyone to hop on a plane from anywhere. But to do that basic thing, it also means that the nodes in the network have to themselves become hierarchically complex to the degree they fairly do their part in servicing this globalised flow of individuals. — apokrisis

All the above is what I'd call general description: according to names, data, and narrative one can make sense of it.

However, I think we're going for something other than description. "ought" is the philosophy word, but I'm not sure it's the right word other than to convey a distinction on a philosophy forum.

If you are talking politics and decision making, the same applies. One can get all upset that democracy organises itself into interest groups and institutions. One can start bleating about the ruling mafia, the oppressive state. One can dream of a world where in effect everyone flies off their own grass airstrip and there are no giant planes taking off from their giant airports.

But there are perfectly natural reasons why societies, as human flow structures, will seem unequal as they seek to deliver equality. And if you don’t understand that, you can’t actually focus on where a hierarchy might be performing poorly in striking that optimal flow balance..

I'm not arguing against the perfectly natural -- given that hierarchies are a part of nature (what else would what I'm criticizing be a part of?) they are perfectly natural.

You just want to pull the whole system down, or live outside its bounds. You have no proper theory of how it works and thus no real idea of how to fix it

I've been tempted a time or two to pull it all down, but no -- I care about more things than my anger or stupid moral commitments.

And I want to push against the notion of a real idea of how to fix it: No one has a proper theory of how to fix it, or a real idea about how it works. Getting everyone on board with that much -- the metaphor I like to invoke is the rocket we're all strapped to without any knowledge about where it's going, how to control it, or when it will end -- is a step in the right direction. If we all think we have the key to the door while failing at opening the door then maybe it ought be time to make another key.

An "ought" for an "is" ;)

So then your target isn’t really hierarchical order but some notion of social injustice. — apokrisis

My target is hierarchy. I know that much.

If we step back to understand hierarchical order as a pure form, we can see that it is a distribution system. It is a way to distribute power, information, entropy, whatever, in an evenly balanced fashion across a closed and cohesive network of relations. — apokrisis

I think this is too general; at some point social systems are not abstract and do things according to what's up rather than because of patterns we've seen.

And, given enough leeway, we can always "see" any social system as "good" -- which is what "evenly balanced fashion across a closed and cohesive network of relations" is doing, at least as I read you: This is what hierarchies ought aim for?

That's not ancient slavery.
Certainly, the ancient greeks regarded foreigners as lesser beings because they couldn't speak properly. But ancient greek colonies don't seem to have behaved like European colonies later on. They didn't, so far as I can see, take over ownership of the hinterland, never mind its inhabitants. On the contrary, they were there primarily to trade.
The account of slavery that you are outlining is the barbarous version of it cooked up by Europeans to justify maltreating people they chose to see as savages. Ancient slavery included anyone who could not pay their debts, prisoners of war, common criminals. Whether they were members of the society that enslaved them was irrelevant. — Ludwig V

It's Aristotle's justification or reasoning about slavery that I think is similar to the later justifications.; though even in slavery there are better and worse masters, the belief that there are those who are inferior by their very nature -- and so needing a guiding hand -- seems pretty similar here:

But whether any person is such by nature, and whether it is advantageous and just for any one to be a slave or no, or whether all slavery is contrary to nature, shall be considered hereafter; not that it is difficult to determine it upon general principles, or to understand it from matters of fact; for that some should govern, and others be governed, is not only necessary but useful, and from the hour of their birth some are marked out for those purposes, and others for the other, and there are many species of both sorts.

And the better those are who are governed the better also is the government, as for instance of man, rather than the brute creation: for the more excellent the materials are with which the work is finished, the more excellent certainly is the work; and wherever there is a governor and a governed, there certainly is some work produced; for whatsoever is composed of many parts, which jointly become one, whether conjunct or separate, evidently show the marks of governing and governed; and this is true of every living thing in all nature; nay, even in some things which partake not of life, as in music; but this probably would be a disquisition too foreign to our present purpose.

Every living thing in the first place is composed of soul and body, of these the one is by nature the governor, the other the governed; now if we would know what is natural, we ought to search for it in those subjects in which nature appears most perfect, and not in those which are corrupted; we should therefore examine into a man who is most perfectly formed both in soul and body, in whom this is evident, for in the depraved and vicious the body seems [1254b] to rule rather than the soul, on account of their being corrupt and contrary to nature.

We may then, as we affirm, perceive in an animal the first principles of herile and political government; for the soul governs the body as the master governs his slave; the mind governs the appetite with a political or a kingly power, which shows that it is both natural and advantageous that the body should be governed by the soul, and the pathetic part by the mind, and that part which is possessed of reason; but to have no ruling power, or an improper one, is hurtful to all; and this holds true not only of man, but of other animals also, for tame animals are naturally better than wild ones, and it is advantageous that both should be under subjection to man; for this is productive of their common safety: so is it naturally with the male and the female; the one is superior, the other inferior; the one governs, the other is governed; and the same rule must necessarily hold good with respect to all mankind.

Those men therefore who are as much inferior to others as the body is to the soul, are to be thus disposed of, as the proper use of them is their bodies, in which their excellence consists; and if what I have said be true, they are slaves by nature, and it is advantageous to them to be always under government.

He then is by nature formed a slave who is qualified to become the chattel of another person, and on that account is so, and who has just reason enough to know that there is such a faculty, without being indued with the use of it; for other animals have no perception of reason, but are entirely guided by appetite, and indeed they vary very little in their use from each other; for the advantage which we receive, both from slaves and tame animals, arises from their bodily strength administering to our necessities; for it is the intention of nature to make the bodies of slaves and freemen different from each other, that the one should be robust for their necessary purposes, the others erect, useless indeed for what slaves are employed in, but fit for civil life, which is divided into the duties of war and peace; though these rules do not always take place, for slaves have sometimes the bodies of freemen, sometimes the souls; if then it is evident that if some bodies are as much more excellent than others as the statues of the gods excel the human form, every one will allow that the inferior ought to be slaves to the superior; and if this is true with respect to the body, it is still juster to determine in the same manner, when we consider the soul; though it is not so easy to perceive the beauty of [1255a] the soul as it is of the body. Since then some men are slaves by nature, and others are freemen, it is clear that where slavery is advantageous to any one, then it is just to make him a slave.


But whether any person is such by nature, and whether it is advantageous and just for any one to be a slave or no, or whether all slavery is contrary to nature, shall be considered hereafter; not that it is difficult to determine it upon general principles, or to understand it from matters of fact; for that some should govern, and others be governed, is not only necessary but useful, and from the hour of their birth some are marked out for those purposes, and others for the other, and there are many species of both sorts.

And the better those are who are governed the better also is the government, as for instance of man, rather than the brute creation: for the more excellent the materials are with which the work is finished, the more excellent certainly is the work; and wherever there is a governor and a governed, there certainly is some work produced; for whatsoever is composed of many parts, which jointly become one, whether conjunct or separate, evidently show the marks of governing and governed; and this is true of every living thing in all nature; nay, even in some things which partake not of life, as in music; but this probably would be a disquisition too foreign to our present purpose.

Every living thing in the first place is composed of soul and body, of these the one is by nature the governor, the other the governed; now if we would know what is natural, we ought to search for it in those subjects in which nature appears most perfect, and not in those which are corrupted; we should therefore examine into a man who is most perfectly formed both in soul and body, in whom this is evident, for in the depraved and vicious the body seems [1254b] to rule rather than the soul, on account of their being corrupt and contrary to nature.

We may then, as we affirm, perceive in an animal the first principles of herile and political government; for the soul governs the body as the master governs his slave; the mind governs the appetite with a political or a kingly power, which shows that it is both natural and advantageous that the body should be governed by the soul, and the pathetic part by the mind, and that part which is possessed of reason; but to have no ruling power, or an improper one, is hurtful to all; and this holds true not only of man, but of other animals also, for tame animals are naturally better than wild ones, and it is advantageous that both should be under subjection to man; for this is productive of their common safety: so is it naturally with the male and the female; the one is superior, the other inferior; the one governs, the other is governed; and the same rule must necessarily hold good with respect to all mankind.

Those men therefore who are as much inferior to others as the body is to the soul, are to be thus disposed of, as the proper use of them is their bodies, in which their excellence consists; and if what I have said be true, they are slaves by nature, and it is advantageous to them to be always under government. He then is by nature formed a slave who is qualified to become the chattel of another person, and on that account is so, and who has just reason enough to know that there is such a faculty, without being indued with the use of it; for other animals have no perception of reason, but are entirely guided by appetite, and indeed they vary very little in their use from each other; for the advantage which we receive, both from slaves and tame animals, arises from their bodily strength administering to our necessities; for it is the intention of nature to make the bodies of slaves and freemen different from each other, that the one should be robust for their necessary purposes, the others erect, useless indeed for what slaves are employed in, but fit for civil life, which is divided into the duties of war and peace; though these rules do not always take place, for slaves have sometimes the bodies of freemen, sometimes the souls; if then it is evident that if some bodies are as much more excellent than others as the statues of the gods excel the human form, every one will allow that the inferior ought to be slaves to the superior; and if this is true with respect to the body, it is still juster to determine in the same manner, when we consider the soul; though it is not so easy to perceive the beauty of [1255a] the soul as it is of the body. Since then some men are slaves by nature, and others are freemen, it is clear that where slavery is advantageous to any one, then it is just to make him a slave. — Politics, Chapter V

I didn't mean to eradicate those important differences. Some hierarchies are more vicious than others. Whether any are not vicious at all, I wouldn't like to say. — Ludwig V

Cool. More a point for @Tarskian then, who's taken a more absolutist line in saying because you cannot eliminate it you might as well accept any version of it that works for you as an individual.

I wouldn't disagree with you. It's probably slower than allowing representatives to make the decision, but the benefit in greater consensus is probably worth it. It certainly gives more power to the people. The desire of the establishment at the time of the Reform Act in 1832 not to undermine the representation system as it stood, rather than introducing mandating them, was undoubtedly reinforced by the fact mandating representatives gives more control to the voters. — Ludwig V

Slower in some ways, faster in others -- and it's still a legal system of rules, so it's still "game-able", just with more inroads for participation; and like any implementation of democracy the specifics can make big differences even if the conceptual understanding of why we do these things around the specifics are roughly similar.

Much as I respect the union practice, I'm not convinced that in our giant states mandating representatives would work at all well for the entire state. It's just too big and too complicated.

I'm not convinced that our present systems of government are really working too well with the bigness and complexity; part of my interest in this isn't just the unintended consequences of the industrial revolution, but also in the vein of modifying existing structures to better handle the problems we're presently failing at dealing with (such as global warming -- all the hierarchy in the world, and nary a solution beyond "Burn it all up" -- at least to hear the people who can set and push policy talk)

I see the point (but would be inclined to wonder whether chimpanzees are really as bad as human beings, for all their dominant ways). But I also think that in some situations, where decisions need to be made quickly or close co-ordination is required, there are practical reasons for choosing hierarchy. — Ludwig V

I think the practical reasons for choosing hierarchy are habituated more than practical -- they're practical because very few people in an industrial society are taught how to work collectively. The people in charge have no reason to develop those skills because it would mean that the "decision makers" wouldn't be valuable anymore. (same sort of thing with Aristotle: I'll free my slaves when I'm done with them, but until then I have no reason to "develop" them such that they can live an autonomous life after I free them)

But then when you get a job it's all about "teamwork" and "collective" because that's what our actual strength as a species is -- it's just that there's been a messy business of figuring out how to make that strength an individual perk for some owners and thinkers.

The syndicalist view you describe is an extreme version of mandating representatives. It seems to me to be a recipe for chaos, since each representative will have slightly different views and may differ radically from the previous one. On the whole, the left wing seems to prefer mandating representatives and/or making them bring their decisions back for a popular vote before it is finalized. (That's how the trade unions work, on the whole - at least in the UK.) — Ludwig V

Unionism is where I'm most familiar with syndicalism from (not that all unions run that way). I think that systems which reject representation are, on the whole, less chaotic because in order for measures to pass you have to build consent. That you have different perspectives with each brings about stability because it becomes less about what some individual person Represents to us, and more about what the collective wants. If you alienate less of the people in a collective, then it's more liable to be maintained by the people participating in it rather than torn down.

Certainly, there are such social groups. There are also half-way houses in which volunteers sign up for a common purpose which, for one reason or another depends on cohesion. That requires an acceptance of discipline and usually, in practice, some kind of hierarchy whether formal or informal. (I'll mention these again below.)
I'm not at all sure what you mean by "the family hierarchy". Did you mean that we don't get to choose our at least our first parents and we are subject to control until we grow up? Certainly, relationships with our birth/childhood family (-ies) are rather different from our family relationships when we start our own families and both are different from our friendship relationships; all those are different from our work and business relationships. Perhaps social and voluntary co-operation dominate, but they are not the whole story. (I don't say that you are wrong)

Now, could a state or nation (or nation-state) be structured in that way, largely free of hierarchy. The issue here is that we need to consider social relationships that extend beyond "kith and kin" - people you know and people you are related to by birth or "marriage" (in its widest sense)?
It seems to me, that since you don't know these people, they cannot work in the same way as your kith and kin relationships. There needs to be a formal structure to enable the kind of cohesion that is suggested by "society" and I don't see how that would work if there were not some kind of hierarchy, no matter how benevolent and co-operative. In practice, I think you will find, there always has been some kind of hierarchy and that is suggestive. — Ludwig V

Some kind, yes, though I tried to pick as an extreme a contrast as possible to demonstrate that "some kind" has meaningful differences between the various instantiations (and even their structures of hierarchy will differ, or not-count as hierarchical between one another) -- a living Goddess compared to a Billionaire Wonder Boy, both surely exhilarating tips of a hierarchy and yet I prefer to suffer the opinions of the latter to being forced to worship the former.




So I want to say that

Now, there's a tricky question. Let's stipulate that "master" and "slave" are social roles that are backed by law - i.e. backed by coercion. It would not be wrong to say, then, that if those roles are not backed by law, they cannot exist in that society.
But could master/slave-like relationships exist without the backing of the law? Of course they can. There are two kinds.
One is created when a group is formed to function in certain kinds of environment, like a ship's crew or an dangerous environment, like an dangerous journey or a war situation. (Civilian police and some other roles are also like this.) In those cases, one (normally) volunteers and, in so doing, accepts the discipline required. We could say that because it is (normally) temporary and one can leave, it is a temporary master/slave relationship, but I think that would be misleading.
The other is a certain kind of relationship that has come to prominence in recent years, known as "coercive control". It is not backed by law - indeed, it is banned by law in some countries. In many cases, it is virtually indistinguishable, apart from the lack of backing by law, from slavery.

You'll notice that I've avoided the question whether such relationships - particularly the second one - are natural or not. The reason is simple. If I say that they are natural, then the moral implication is that they are not immoral - that's why Aristotle said that master/slave relationships are natural. He was misled, of course, but he couldn't really be expected to know any better, since slavery, in his times, was more or less universally recognized and taken for granted by everyone whose opinion we know about. Nowadays, in most parts of the world, we think that slavery is immoral and consequently we would be very reluctant to say that it is natural.

However, many animal societies are structured by a dominance hierarchy (pecking order). These are not exactly slave societies, but they are dictated by coercion, or the threat of it. But it would be meaningless to try to apply our moral standards to them. However, I do think that we should not think that we can eliminate informal dominance relationships between individuals and within social groups. The trick will be to prevent them becoming slave-like relationships. — Ludwig V

This is pretty much my target in thinking through hierarchies: Aristotle's justification for slavery follows a common refrain of thought throughout societies of dominance: The barbarians are uncivilized, as can be heard from when they speak "Bar bar bar", saying basically nothing, and so need an enlightened human of knowledge to direct them towards the best that the inferior can hope to achieve (since they won't reach for it on their own) ((The same reasonings were applied to the Irish when they wanted to convert the Irish peasants into proletarian workers, or the Africans when they wanted to convert them into their chattel slaves))

But, due to human nature, whenever a civilizer comes along somehow the civilized end up worse off and helping the civilizer live an easier life :D

That's the bit of human nature I'm targeting I think we have lots of reasonings to excuse social dominance, but for the most part it's our chimpanzee side which gives rise to such reasonings rather than the purportedly enlightened side.

Human nature has this capacity to form hierarchies, but it also has the capacity to dither them -- so it's more a question of "ought" than the "is" of nature (since I'd agree that ought implies can -- but since we can....)

Oh I didn't realize -- what can I say, while I criticize democracy I basically believe it's the right way to go.

Can you lay out a case?

I'm laughing but I suppose I'd go to Rawl's Veil of Ignorance: the likelihood that I'd be a King is very low, so it's simply not attractive.

Yes, I slipped up. And really any poking or prodding is welcome by me because I'm still thinking through these various questions that are attached. I asked ahead of time because I didn't want @Tarskian to feel picked on, but I thought they expressed a clear sentiment that I've seen across the 'nets and elsewise worth thinking about.


The apes that get to office should be like the apes at home, insofar that's possible (and insofar that we're able to protect the wolves voting what to do with the sheep in some legal jujitsu)


My thought is that as soon as you're "the representative" then, in the material sense of being-able, you're no longer the same as whom you represent. (one of the mechanisms of syndicalism is that representatives cannot re-present, so a new person has to go up to say what the people they represent think every time, whatever that "time" happens to be designated as)

But your subtext is correct, of course. It is very hard to find democratic politicians who will vote for an unpopular policy. — Ludwig V

I appreciate your grace, but I don't know what my subtext is (other than the usual drivel I say ;) ).

I'm thinking through these questions still, and posting in the hopes of hearing others' thoughts. In the old-skool forum way :D

In a capitalist society, wealth becomes concentrated, then redistributed by economic crisis. It's happened over and over, no matter who was in charge. The secret to the endurance of capitalism is that it's incredibly creative. In a sense, it created all of us.

The only part democracy plays is that it provides the freedom capitalism needs. — frank

I think democracy is more of a levy to capitalism than an accelerator: democracy, thus far, has happened to help capitalism, but that's because democracies are overwhelmingly not democratic even in the representative sense. The people there come from money and so vote for things that help thems, like all humans do. (this is a big problem for representative democracy: since humans vote for themselves, by human nature, you can't build representative systems since the apes that get the office are no better than the apes at home, and will vote for themselves) 

But if you build in more steps for scrutiny then this gets tampered as the individual decision becomes collective.

As a digital nomad slash nomad capitalist, I do not care if the ruling oligarchy increases taxes in a particular jurisdiction, for example, because it never affects me.

Most political decisions are irrelevant to me because I can just choose another jurisdiction where they made another political decision.

Freedom from harassment by the oligarchy is possible. It takes effort to achieve it, but in my opinion, it is definitely worth it. — Tarskian

I think this is an individualistic response: if you can make it happen for you then do it.

Sure! If you're content then go be content all by yourself.

I'm thinking about everyone here while also thinking of myself.

You don’t want to waste time trying to erase hierarchical order. — apokrisis

Oh? I like to waste my time in exactly that pursuit.

Yeah, I agree that those parts don't mean much.

Though I include them because they seem to include the latter parts a bit. There's nothing "geometric" beyond asserting that hierarchy is inevitable. That's part of why I wanted to put this up here for discussion: I've often seen these sorts of claims with respect to hierarchy without really saying much more than "There will always be winners and losers, so stop talking about making it better"

I believe @Tarskian says many things from the heart I disagree with. I asked ahead of time if they'd mind me starting a thread with the quote, and mostly just want to riff on this idea of hierarchies being inevitable, and whether democracy manages to address hierarchy at all, or is just a re-invention of the same.

Also, I can't deny, I enjoy going through drivel :D

Typing this out from The Logic of Scientific Discovery

5. EXPERIENCE AS METHOD

The task of formulating an acceptable definition of the idea of an 'empirical science' is not without its difficulties. Some of these arise from the fact that there must be many theoretical systems with a logical structure very similar to the one which at any particular time is the accepted system of empirical science. This situation is sometimes described by saying that there is a great number-- presumably an infinite number -- of 'logically possible worlds'. Yet the system called 'empirical science' is intended to represent only one world: the 'real world' or the 'world of our experience'

I'm just flipping through to try and give some footholds in Popper, and liked the title of this section because it seems to get along with what I think.

There is more, which I'd have to revisit to get more clear, about observation vs. theoretical statements, or basic statements, which I think all goes down the dumpster when you look at the the publications of scientists. (Maybe one of the reasons I don't remember it ;) :P)

There's also the fact that Marx and Engels were using the term Wissenschaft, which is broader than science as commonly understood in English today. They meant that their socialism was systematic, not merely Utopian. They certainly didn't mean to equate it with empirical sciences.

Although you're probably right, Moliere, that they were attempting to reach beyond that older sense of science to something modern. — Jamal

In the Penguin edition of Capital, v1 introduction (page 12 for the viewers at home):

I. THE PURPOSE OF CAPITAL
In Capital Marx's fundamental aim was to lay bare the laws of motion which govern the origins, the rise, the development, the decline and the disappearance of a given social form of economic
organization: the capitalist mode of production.

He was not seeking universal economic laws of organization. Indeed, one of the essential theses of Capital is that no such law exists.

For Marx, there are no economic laws valid for each and every basically different form of society (aside from trivialities like the formula which points out that no society can consume more than it produces without reducing its stock of wealth - whether the natural fertility of the land, the total population, the mass of means of production, or several of these). Each specific social form of economic organization has its own specific economic laws. Capital limits itself to examining those which govern the capitalist mode of production.

Capital is therefore not' pure' economic theory at all. For Marx, ' pure' economic theory, that is economic theory which abstracts from a specific social structure, is impossible. It would be similar
to ' pure' anatomy, abstracted from the specific species which is to be examined.

Going back to something to remind myself here -- I've seen Capital, v1 described as Newton's laws of motion for capitalism before, and the quote here gives a limitation to that expression in that Newton was aiming to be universal, but Marx's description is limited to Capitalism.

But still law-like, in that new scientific sense, like Newton. (I generally consider the currently accepted sciences as the new scientific sense: The scholastics had an organized body of knowledge, but Descartes wanted to talk about The World, which Newton's text is similar in that regard of trying to "explain it all")

I hate cars.

They cost too much money. They break a lot, which costs more money. And they waste fuel which is a resource we ought use more carefully.

I also hate that I pretty much have to have one because it feels like another form of rent: just an endless money pit that depreciates and yet you have to maintain it in order to get to work.

I'm conflicted because I could be considered a post-modern leftist but I like all the old dead white men :D (also, while I read the PoMo's, I think I do so from the old perspective of simply reading the texts critically)

Marx definitely claimed science for his socialism, but I don't think it's a "worse" thing because he was in that era when it looked like science could solve it all: He's 1 generation after August Comte, and Hegel's philosophy emphasizes itself as scientific -- it's just in what we'd call the "old" way of saying "scientific" because it's an organized body of knowledge, whereas Marx seems to straddle these two ways of thinking of science. Sometimes it's an organized body of knowledge, and sometimes it predicts the stages of history ala August Comte's Positivism.

I very much disagree with the "stages" view as mistaken historiography/sociology -- though think there's something about the industrial revolution and the rise of the shop-owners over the Lords and church that is hard to understand, where Marx gives a good explanation for it: they acquired means of producing wealth greater than the lords and formed coalitions to increase their influence, as humans do when they can, and things proceeded from there.

But I think Capital describes capitalism from the perspective of the worker in the most scientific manner thus far at least. Economics after Marx shy away from production-centric theories of value, while explicitly ignoring all the things Marx says about exchange in order to focus in on what those economists care about: Markets, firms, profits, etc.