Re: power & legitimacy

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Devine, James" wrote:
>
> (Leftists and even liberals sometimes
> sneer at "law and order" -- because it's often a code-phrase for something
> bad -- but the vast majority see real law and order as necessary to having
> even a minimally acceptable life. That's an important reason why "anarchy"
> has so many negative connotations to the vast majority of people.)
>

It's pretty hard to survive (or tolerate surviving as a positive)
without a very large element of predictability in life. Imagine what
driving on an interstate would be like if there was no rule as to which
side one drove on. Travelling 50 miles would turn into more adventure
than most people want in a lifetime. Or to push the hypothetical a bit
further, suppose that each highway cop could make a private decision
every 30 minutes as to the max & min speeds over the next 30 minutes. At
10:05 a.m. you get a ticket for driving under the mimimum speed of 70
mph and at 10:35 you get a ticket for driving over the maximum speed of
30 mph.

Anarchy of this kind can have its advntages in particular contexts. As I
understand it, Roosevelt's theory (or at least practice) of managing
government agencies was to never make clear the exact lines of authority
or the borderlines between different bureaucratic turfs. And I often
came to suspect at different conferences during the '60s that the most
efficient way to set an agenda was not to set one: hours spent on
dehating what to dehate.

But on the whole unpredictability is a greater barrier to human
wellbeing and satisfaction than lack of variety ever can be. One of the
great controlling myths of capitalist ideology is the premise that
infinite variety is necessary for human happiness.

Carrol