My recent article I presented a case that nonviolent censorship and shunning are both fundamental features a non-violent government. I made the case that it is entirely possible for non violent governments to have as much or even more power than their violent alternatives that exist today. Anytime there is sufficient consensus among the masses, social pressure can be much more powerful a motivator than any prison sentence. Sadly, social pressure can be manipulated and abused through propaganda to create negative outcomes.
Peer pressure usually operates in a pseudo pyramid (@gikitiki)
This concept is an accurate observation. There are leaders and followers and this is something that will always be true. It is almost cliché in movies that some popular “bully” steers the opinion of their lackeys. People latch onto people and follow their opinions in an effort to improve their own social standing.
It takes some major event to dislodge the followers from a bully. The followers usually find a new leader and will blindly follow that leader.
People must own themselves (@williambanks)
People need to form their own opinions. This is the crux of many similar arguments. In particular, if you don’t take the time to derive your own opinion about someone then you are letting someone else control your thoughts. This is claimed to be the opposite of freedom and anarchy. You are still a slave if someone else draws your conclusions for you.
We all want people to think for themselves. It is the best defense against some psychopath gaining influence over the masses. It demonstrates that people are taking personal responsibility.
When you have a system of organized coordinated shunning of people whom you have never met, then you have a system of government that has the potential to be abused. Whoever has the ability to manipulate the consensus algorithm has the power to make arbitrary law. The masses who have bought into the consensus algorithm will follow it off a cliff if they do not think for themselves.
Like Larken Rose states, the belief in authority is the root of all evil. Whether that authority is with a government or a blockchain based consensus algorithm. The moment people feel compelled to comply with an authority they become a tool to the system.
We need to Separate Ends from Means
Anarchists frequently condemn statists for allowing the ends to justify the means. Statists are willing to tolerate violence so long as the end result is a mostly peaceful society. They have no guiding principle other than the outcome.
When I set out to build a free society based upon the principle of nonaggression, the goal was to achieve “governance without violence”. When I present my case for how it might work, many anarchists are suddenly concerned about the potential outcomes of a society based only on nonviolence and free association (or disassociation).
Without lifting a finger to hurt someone, society still has the power to condemn a man and any who help him to death by economic shunning. This is an unacceptable outcome to many anarchists. Any system that is capable of coordinating this economic shunning would be perceived as a new threat: the new state.
In their mind they picture a utopia where there are no rulers or social forces acting on them in ways they do not like. They imagine a world of free thinking individuals who are universally tolerant. This kind of thinking is just as deranged as communists who think that one day everyone will be selfless and work for the common good.
Is Non Aggression Enough?
If we are to build a system the bring about a society structured as closely to our ideals as possible, then it may be the case that non-aggression is a necessary but insufficient principle. Imagine we succeeded in creating a world government based upon blockchain technology that had no police, prisons, or guns. Imagine that it had the support of the masses.
Now imagine that the propaganda machine convinced the masses (via blockchain based economic incentives) to voluntarily shun everyone who refused a vaccine. Imagine that anyone who amassed a certain amount of wealth was also shunned if they didn’t give it away to a socially acceptable cause?
Why there is nothing to Fear!
Fortunately we don’t need to fear these potentially undesirable outcomes. Absent the fear of violence, any sufficiently large group of people who share a common belief would have the ability to form their own self-sustaining communities (effectively their own country). The pursuit of freedom and profit will drive people to separate from the herd mentality.
Any kind of sustained shunning would be countered with underground movements where people secretly ignore the official consensus until enough people defect and the official consensus changes.
The power to shun is also the power to secede from the greater society to form your own smaller community. Free market competition among communities is what will drive all communities toward the most profitable social arrangements.
Some people fear that these communities would eventually "go to war" against one another. This would not be the case if all communities had the nonaggression principle as the foundation of their own governance structure.
Division of Labor and Delegation of Responsibility
In order for any nonviolent community to scale beyond a couple dozen individuals, it is necessary for there to be a division of labor when it comes to reputation and policing the community. It is not practical for everyone to derive their own opinion of every other member. People must defer to someone they trust.
The reason we join societies and accept voluntary forms of governance (such as blockchain based voting), is because these societies and organizations provide us with more value than they take. These organizations may have elected officials that are granted the power to make rules. All that matters is that they do not have the power to use violence and aggression to enforce their rules.
This is what blockchain technology is all about, defining governance structures that people voluntarily consent to. Some communities have simple rules like immutable censorship free money transmission. Other communities have more complex rules like paying people for subjective work with a prohibition on plagiarism. Still other communities may set their aims on replacing insurance, justice, and other aspects of government with effective non-violent alternatives.
What is clear is that for any community to scale, it must embrace division of labor and rely on algorithms to disintermediate reputation and coordinate social punishment.