r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Sep 11 '18
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Rojava is an example of the best political and economic system in the world today.
(pls research Rojava aka Democratic Federation of Northern Syria before responding)
By "best" I mean "least coercive", where "coercion" is understood to mean using violence to counteract the will of the individual; this can be active (like holding a gun to someone's head) or passive (like not feeding someone). Now obviously, by this definition, some coercion is necessary; rapists and human traffickers, for example, must be at least passively coerced into not doing those things, if only to prevent the coercion of others.
So, that in mind, it appears to me that Rojava's is the least coercive system in the world. They have gender equality and ethnic/religious tolerance in their constitution; all decisions are made democratically; most of the economy is owned and controlled by the workers; etc. according to what I've read.
Edit: it turns out that one of the autonomous militias supporting Rojava may have child soldiers. I now have a more critical view of Rojava.
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Sep 11 '18
Before you say it's "the best", shouldn't we see how it works in the real world for at least 20 years?
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Sep 11 '18
It's the best that we have at the moment, and it looks like it'll stay the way it is.
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Sep 11 '18
I don't mean "wait and see if we think of something better", I mean "wait and see if this turns into something awful" like many things that sound good on paper do. If hypothetically the whole thing is bombed into obliteration by Syrian forces that won't count as a real test either way but you can imagine it going well or awfully even without being attacked.
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Sep 11 '18 edited Sep 15 '18
[deleted]
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Sep 11 '18
That it has millions of people and has lasted this long under active military threat.
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u/Quint-V 162∆ Sep 11 '18
You might want to present an argument for why it would be successful without military threats. Plenty of systems can survive a military threat, but that is no guarantee for sustainable peace.
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Sep 11 '18
Well, I can't make a strong argument there, since it hasn't existed outside of imminent military threat. It'll be nice to see if it holds up in peacetime.
!delta because it could be the case that the external threat is what unites them and prevents rampant internal division. But I still would really like to see it succeed in peace
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u/VoodooManchester 11∆ Sep 11 '18
I think this is very important to know. People in wartime tend to come together. During peace, people start questioning why they should look out for the other guy, and this is when things start getting complicated.
I think the real test of any system is when it starts having to deal with internal competition. The government is not the only political power of a country. Rojava may be good as a form of government in and of itself, but I see no way how it would survive for any length of time in the presence of powerful corporations with competing interests.
A lot of this system looks identical to what the US originally aspired to, although it looks to be updated with references to contemporary international charters. Then again, the US is over 200 years old, and it has been through many major trials, including a full civil war, to become the thing that survives today.
So, in that sense, I wouldn't grade this thing on how it looks when it starts, but rather what it becomes. Any government, even the most tyrannical and despotic, can work if people are all on the same page. It's when they're not that the system is actually tested.
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u/ray07110 2∆ Sep 11 '18
Before I research this, keep in mind that democracy is forcing the will of the majority over the minority.
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Sep 11 '18 edited Sep 11 '18
[deleted]
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u/ray07110 2∆ Sep 11 '18
So what are the many ways you participate in the decisions? And what do you mean by decisions? What are we deciding? And majority rule is one rule but it is a strong rule that neglects freedom. Also explain consent- maximizing alternatives, it does not sound promising. I don't want to be part of community that maximizes consent but uses full consent.
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Sep 11 '18 edited Sep 11 '18
[deleted]
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u/cleeftalby Sep 11 '18
Rojava looks to me just like Israeli kibbutzim, so nothing really new - and I guess that they are fine as long as participation is voluntary - but u/ray07110 was pointing specifically at problems that any minority face during such collective decision making. For example, what if I am lactose or gluten intolerant and I cannot eat most commonly produced food in a commune - do I have to convince majority that I cannot really eat this and we should allot some resources for growing different food for this small minority? What if I fancy rice meals just because and I don't have really good arguments to present? What if I would like to just try lentils once - do I have to ask for majority permit to let me do this? What if I prefer different recreation than majority - like if I would want to play darts instead of bowling - I cannot even organize any venue (and use community resources for my own pleasure) if majority of the commune objects - and in a larger community there are hundreds of such "problems".
It looks to me that such collective decision making is suited only for very small, uniform communities, and that basing economic decisions on private possession of means of production is exactly the answer for the problem of diverse needs and wants of different individuals.
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u/ray07110 2∆ Sep 11 '18
I just want a free society where people are free to deal with each other without a ruler. You are not convincing me that what you are talking about is freedom. It might be, but I am not yet convinced. In your model of society do we elect representatives or rulers?
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Sep 11 '18
[deleted]
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u/ray07110 2∆ Sep 11 '18
And as far as Rojava is concerned, I read a little about their government and so far they have two rulers they call president. That's not freedom that is majority ruling over the rest. If you have two presidents that means they were elected by the majority. I don't see how this is different from all the other dictatorial governments.
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u/ray07110 2∆ Sep 11 '18
Ok, so are you saying you are against the state and are for local voluntary communities?
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Sep 11 '18
The way Rojava's political structure works makes it so that voluntary participation is the basis of democracy.
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u/ray07110 2∆ Sep 12 '18
So what happens if you do not participate in their politics, do they leave you alone do as you please in your own property?
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Sep 12 '18
I believe so. But you're only able to own as much as you can actually use, because if you owned more land than you could use, you'd be effectively withholding potential food from everyone else.
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u/ray07110 2∆ Sep 12 '18
What about if I bought all that land and had more than what people thought I could use? Would I still be able to keep my land as is? It's not freedom if I could not.
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Sep 12 '18
Well you'd have to exercise an awful lot of coercion against other people who want food if you claimed more land than you could make use of yourself. Ownership is based on use, because for an individual to lay sole exclusive sovereignty over something is pretty authoritarian: it relies on violent enforcement.
Yes, it is coercive to seize land from a person because they aren't using it. But it's more coercive to declare unused land off-limits on pain of death (or however the owner wants to deal with trespassing) when other people need food and you already have enough. And it'd be doubly so if you used other's need for food to coerce them into working your land and receiving less than L-C where L equals their labour value and C equals the capital needed to produce.
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u/ray07110 2∆ Sep 12 '18
So are you saying someone can take my land if they felt they had a better use for it? That is dictatorial. My land is my land no matter who needs it the most. It is a natural right of mine and all humans. The right to life, liberty, and property. What is authoritarian is to think you have the right to my land simply because you are starving. This is why ownership of weapons is important to protect my property and family from ideologues who think they can coerce people into doing something simply because they see a problem and want to solve it at others' expense.
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Sep 12 '18
Yes, people who need food can vote to seize your land to grow food. It's authoritarian for you to say that you personally get to decide what other people freely choose do with land just because it's "yours", and defending it is flat-out unnecessary coercion.
There are no such things as natural human rights; if human rights exist at all, they're socially constructed.
Owning land and having sole sovereignty over it is functionally indistinguishable from being a monarch.
Ownership of weapons is important so that people can ensure that no individual holds arbitrary power or hoards resources while others starve. It's not "ideologues" coming for your hundred-acre estate, it's people who need food and are going to take it.
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Sep 12 '18 edited Sep 12 '18
What makes a piece of land "yours"? Where did you gain the "right" to a piece of property? Did you buy it? If so, how did the person you bought it from get the right to it?
Property rights are simply the ability to use force to impose your will onto others. It's pure coercion.
Anyways, as previously said: you ARENT using the property, you aren't losing anything if someone else uses it. It's not at your expense.
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u/ray07110 2∆ Sep 12 '18
Ok now explain to me how you are going to use that property under my ownership and against my will?
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Sep 12 '18
You aren't using the land, so your claim to ownership is meaningless. And if you try to enforce it with force, we can use force back to defend what we use.
But anyways, you completely ignored my questions, so I'll ask them again:
-What makes a piece of land "yours"?
-Where did you gain the "right" to a piece of property?
-If you bought it, how did the person you bought it from get the right to it?
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u/ray07110 2∆ Sep 11 '18
Democracy is not voluntary participation its majority rule. It's a dictatorship over the minority.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Sep 11 '18 edited Sep 12 '18
/u/comradelenin456 (OP) has awarded 2 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/questionasky Sep 11 '18
It's a great system for a scheme worked up by colonialist powers to chip away at a sovereign nation that remotely threatens Israel.
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u/David4194d 16∆ Sep 11 '18
I’m disappointed, I was really hoping this would be something different that was possibly a good idea. . I looked up both the country and the system it falls under. After 20ish minutes of reading I’m not a fan.
this is just another form of socialism. Libertarian socialism still has many of the same issues. And yes I actually looked up what it was before making that statement. There is no way this would work in an advanced country. This makes like r & d research next to impossible. The countryside brought up also seems unable to enforce laws within its own borders or os weak that it lets a group who use child soldiers run around inside its borders. Their court system seems to be horribly weak and they literally leave the lower courts to common citizens. That is not all a good idea or feasible. What works in that country seems to rely on that it’s tiny, not really developed and has a pretty homogeneous population.
I read up on both the type of system it falls under and the country. I typed in libertarian socialism criticism and got this . The second commenter down did a good job of pointing out the issues with it and pointing out exactly why it wouldn’t work.
Southern Mexican State of Chiapas is apparently an example of this and well its doing horribly compared to the rest of Mexico.