Democracy

[RCSaunders]

I see no difference between the Mafia and any other government ...

I agree up to a point, and where I demur is for another time.

For now I want to take you on a thought journey starting from that thought, if you are willing to follow me: which came first, the Italian Mafia or the Italian government? Would the Mafia in Italy wither away if the Italian government were abolished or would it thrive?

I have no idea. I know the Sicilian Mafia came first. and even after government became involved was actually supported by both government and the Catholic Church. The Mafia was the government in the beginning. Most so-called criminal organizations (cartels, syndicates, Cosa Nostra, the Tongs, Drug Cartels, etc.) are called, "criminal," because government laws make things, "crimes," like alcohol, drugs, prostitution, and gambling, which creates a huge market the criminal organizations exploit. If their activity was restricted to those kinds of things they would be nothing more than an "underground," or, "black," market. Unfortunately they usually include violence, extortion, murder, and human trafficking in their activities, like any government, except governments do it at the wholesale level and call it criminal justice and war.

There will always be governments, and governments will always make laws prohibiting things people want and there will always be those who will pander to the desires of others in defiance of government laws, and most will be violent because the governments they are defying are. That's the best answer I can give.

[mickthinks]

The Mafia teaches us one thing, that kings will impose themselves on us whether we like it or not, or in your words:

There will always be governments

So let me amend your earlier complaint about political philosophy;

it is universally assumed there must be some system or agency that uses force, or the threat of it ...

I think it is closer to the truth to say philosophers of government accept that there will always be some agency that uses force, or the threat of it. That is the problem.

And it is philosophy's task to discuss how best to organise society to limit the damage that those agencies can do to the rest of us.

[mickthinks]

So to develop bahman's challenge ...

So what is your solution?

along these lines;

How would you organise society to limit the damage that Mafia-like agencies can do to the rest of us?

[RCSaunders]

The Mafia teaches us one thing, that kings will impose themselves on us whether we like it or not, or in your words:

There will always be governments

So let me amend your earlier complaint about political philosophy;

it is universally assumed there must be some system or agency that uses force, or the threat of it ...

I think it is closer to the truth to say philosophers of government accept that there will always be some agency that uses force, or the threat of it. That is the problem.

And it is philosophy's task to discuss how best to organise society to limit the damage that those agencies can do to the rest of us.

The mistake is in thinking a society needs to be, or can be, organized in some way to be the kind you, or anyone else, would like it to be. Every society is ultimate the sum of what all the individuals that make up that society are. You cannot change a society without changing people, or using coercion to force them to behave in a way you like. There is no social/political solution and every one that has ever been tried, necessarily ended and will end in disaster. Not even, "freedom," can work as a political principle, primarily because most human are really terrified of true freedom and being totally responsible for their own lives.

The only life you can rightly and successfully control is your own and it is the only one you need to control. No one can fix society, or the world, or any others. Each individual's responsibility is for their own life to make of it the best they can using all their ability to be the best human they can be without interfering in anyone else's life. When everyone lives that way, no one will be interested in government.