Thanks for your comment! (I quoted you in bold, and me in italics.)
I think you are putting into ‘the Enlightenments’ mouth a lot of stuff I’m reasonable confident its architects had no opinion on(3 branches specifically, a triumph?!)
I am not sure what you mean by “a triumph”. But yes, 3 branches specifically comes from the Enlightenment! It’s from Montesquieu’s “De l’esprit des lois” from 1748.
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It feels like this is incomplete unless you answer the central paradox, yeah? Like, don’t skate past it. if concentration of power is bad, and must be prevented...
What can do that?
IE, if I trust you to make sure Elon can’t have too much power, then you have more power than he does, and who makes me safe around you? Aren’t you just large Elon (Elonger?) at that point?
In the article, I explained what the current way to mitigate this problem, which we have used to this day: Separation of Powers and comes from the Enlightenment.
A system where no individual has more power than you by ensuring that no one can deploy the collective might against you unilaterally.
I am not even saying that this is a good way to mitigate it. I am just describing that this is how we do it. I explained specifically that I am not talking about solutions:
This essay is not about solutions. So in itself, it is not a critique of libertarianism or our current systems, given that I am not presenting an alternative.
I am not sure what more I can say to make this clearer.
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Concentration of Power can’t be ‘bad’ or ‘good’ unless you are a religious sort, and God is assigning scores. Otherwise, it has to be relative, right? It is ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than some other thing. In the absence of that other thing (that is, the thing we would use to make there not be billionaires), saying that they are ‘bad’ is meaningless.
I don’t care more about word policing
If you want libertarians to pay attention to why people might think concentrating power is wrong, there needs to be a whole argument. Concentrating power is wronger THAN (this specific way of preventing power from being concentrated). Otherwise its people who think rain is unpleasant. “Sure...anyway...”
I mean, this is still addressed in the conclusion.
I wanted to write a direct criticism of libertarianism, but I needed to make the point about power first.
The whole argument is coming later, but one sub-argument is this dynamic that is often unclear. So I write about the dynamic, and then the whole argument.
Thanks for your comment! (I quoted you in bold, and me in italics.)
I am not sure what you mean by “a triumph”. But yes, 3 branches specifically comes from the Enlightenment! It’s from Montesquieu’s “De l’esprit des lois” from 1748.
-
In the article, I explained what the current way to mitigate this problem, which we have used to this day: Separation of Powers and comes from the Enlightenment.
A system where no individual has more power than you by ensuring that no one can deploy the collective might against you unilaterally.
I am not even saying that this is a good way to mitigate it. I am just describing that this is how we do it. I explained specifically that I am not talking about solutions:
I am not sure what more I can say to make this clearer.
-
I don’t care more about word policing
I mean, this is still addressed in the conclusion.
The whole argument is coming later, but one sub-argument is this dynamic that is often unclear. So I write about the dynamic, and then the whole argument.