Thursday, October 20, 2011

Someone needs to give orders....

They were Rousseauvians. But now Hobbes is starting to sound more right. Time someone was in charge; too many liberties.

From the OWS folks in the stinky park....

From today’s battles, it’s not yet clear who will win the day: the organizers or the organized. But the month-long protest has clearly grown and evolved to a point where a truly leaderless movement will risk eviction — or, worse, insurrection.

As the communal sleeping bag argument between Lauren Digion and Sage Roberts threatened to get out of hand, a facilitator in a red hat walked by, brow furrowed. “Remember? You’re not allowed to do any more interviews,” he said to Digion. She nodded and went back to work. But when Roberts shouted, “Don’t tell me what to do!” Digion couldn't hold back.

“Someone has to be told what to do," she said. "Someone needs to give orders. There’s no sense of order in this fucking place.”


Not even anarchists believe in anarchy. Someone needs to give orders. Hee hee!

This is actually a reason that I do support the OWS thing, nationwide. It's time kids found out that "spontaneous politics" is dangerous nonsense. In markets nobody has to give orders, because someone would OWN that spot. In this communal arrangement where some are just more equal than others, someone has to give orders, and eventually will have to bring in guns to back up those orders.

A nice WSJ article on the proceedings. Catatonic? Heh.

(Nod to Anonyman, whose wife gives HIM orders)

5 comments:

Hasdrubal said...

It's not that nobody needs to give orders in a market, my manager certainly gives me orders, it's that nobody needs to give orders to organize the entire market. Everybody has broken into their own little groups, in firms and families and whatnot, and those are all structured and hierarchical, and they each plan for the future.

Markets aren't anarchy. They're an interface where a lot of different organizations can interact with each other under a set of conditions, allowing them to coordinate with each other without regard to the various internal structures, and without needing a central authority to coordinate their activity.

I'm surprised I haven't heard it out loud yet, but I'm sure a lot of liberals/statists/whatever are looking at OWS and thinking "See, spontaneous order is a sham." Spontaneous order isn't about individuals randomly going in whatever direction the mood takes them at the moment, it works because each individual or group works really hard to achieve the goals they've chosen. The market facilitates that by making it easier for individuals and groups to interact with each other in furtherance of their own goals.

Tom said...

Mungowitz: "Not even anarchists believe in anarchy. ... Hee hee!"

I need to remind you that these jokers do not speak for all anarchists. No one can. Or were you under the impression that this anecdote, selected for your edification by a (likely very liberal) reporter, is a proof of some general rule?

And what's the "hee hee" about? You "got it in" for anarchists?

/anarchist
//means it

John Covil said...

What is it you object to? You want to abolish Government?

Tom said...

John, more precisely, I want to abolish The State. It's the idea that for some arbitrarily* chosen set of people, some subset of the people will make Rules, which all are compelled to obey. The essence of The State is "we make rules and you WILL obey." I see a contrast with government being "we have rules for our members to resolve disputes and we give assistance for self defense." Can one exist without the other? It's a big topic.



*Traditionally, the choice is made geographically. The important part is that the people chosen have very little to say about their inclusion.

John Covil said...

It certainly is. But mostly I was trying to see if you were gonna humor me with the Chesterton allusion.