So rather than go into the market system in this entry there's another pressing issue I guess I felt the urge to write about. I read up about a lot of different occupations but especially the one in Los Angeles (which I attended) I notice a few concerns I occasionally see at other occupations. Specifically within regards to civil disobedience and its uses.
A lot of times arguments are brought up about respecting the law, about making arrangements with the police and general polite facilitation. There needs to be both that and a level of civil disobedience but I think there's also a stark line that needs to be drawn and it's not drawn yet on what I think is entirely the correct basis.
Details below:
First, what has brought us all here to these occupations? The Declaration of New York put it so well, it is a feeling of profound injustice, of wrongness in almost every facet of our current day institutions of power and how they work.
Bankers don't go to jail for stealing from We The People, but We The People go to jail when we steal from bankers. Now first, how is this even the case today? Well, when you look at the legal system you begin to see that the crimes committed by financial institutions first are obscured behind a corporate veil, behind mathematics, and also behind an impossible legal standard known as Scienter (proof of explicit intent to commit wrong.)
So then as you notice these three things we must look at the history of each. Corporations were originally created for purposes of allowing a single individual or a few individuals from holding sole responsibility for a large organization. When you grow beyond a certain size it can be difficult to pinpoint who is explicitly the cause of X or Y decision within the company.
Although this is not an excuse to let everyone off of the hook, it requires a different standard be applied to administer justice correctly. The corporate veil thus exists in theory to provide a level of a shield to allow larger organizations to exist and operate.
Scienter in contract law was created to provide in a sense a fair arrangement for contracts where it may be that two people simply did not knowingly intend to commit fraud but may have not had the information necessary to create an ideal arrangement and so to truly pursue harsh punishments against one party explicit wrongdoing must be proven.
This makes sense in principle but again, as we see it in practice it offers a veil of plausible deniability others can hide behind. This is done by legal requirements regarding responsibility of parties in a contract or agreement. Basically, it lets people exploit legal language to create loophole situations where if you can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt they did something just for the sole reason of screwing you over, you can't really go after them.
Scienter as a litmus test for harm is about as compelling an idea as deciding to remove statutes for involuntary manslaughter in criminal law. The third, mathematics, is more self-evident in that it can be difficult to describe sufficiently complex mathematics to a judge who is not themselves well versed in it, or a jury.
So when we consider all of these three things together we see how three unrelated and seemingly innocuous things, over time, came together to create the present situation we're in. Well, one part of it anyway, there's far more than this but it makes the clearest example.
So whether or not it was ever intended, the Rule of Law was subverted by a compounding of the letter of the law and adherence not to a mutable spirit of the law but in requirements of strict adherence to its letter.
In short, the law got manipulated, edited and abridged so much over time it became the warped creature it is today.
But what is The Rule of Law? What does it really mean? Well the entire history of a "common law" system was just that, peasants and nobles had entirely different sorts of laws they were required to follow and these were grossly unfair. Common law was built to reduce it to a single set of laws to deal with the facts at hand rather then one's status at birth.
But it was still subject to perversion because over time only its letter was adhered to without the wisdom to understand the spirit. At its core, Rule of Law means establishing a fundamental standard of fairness in all interpersonal dealings between individuals. Common law exists to standardize this in letter, but other ways to warp it were then discovered through abstracting physical harm and physical seizure from financial harm and financial seizure through debt.
So understanding that, we see the Law's true purpose is to guarantee fairness and equality in justice for all peoples. So now back to the Law as it exists today. We see the problems within it, and our system in many ways if we even cannot elucidate the full totality of them.
So it must then be said of Civil Disobedience in every case, first and foremost. Is this law just? Is it right what they are doing? For when we consider how the law was slowly paper-cut into what it is today, we can see in a sense a strategy of how now, all across the Nation the Occupations are being paper-cut to death with city ordinances and many other regulations that should never have existed.
So any attempt to appeal to "The law" as a source of morality, even if it may in some cases technically be correct is bankrupt in practice as an overall theory. The law must not be judged as inherently valid or moral in any way shape or form because it is "The law." Instead, first, a real discussion of the morality of an act must be considered in its fullness.
Does what we do harm anyone? Does it cause severe or unnecessary suffering? Is there another way to achieve the same ends? We must first and foremost be focused on discussions of morality.
The only instance of "The Law" that should be evaluated as "The Law" is when considering how the media will report on our actions. Because many people still quite fallaciously attribute morality to the law. But we must never let "The Law" dictate our morality, only the decision on the most effective means of executing an already moral act.
So in many ways it saddens me to hear these same appeals to "The Law" often repeated online. We must understand Civil Disobedience for what it is, breaking unjust laws to highlight their unjustness and/or their utter irrationality. If a law does not serve a valid or just purpose there should be no argument made to adhere to it unless violating it will present an inescapable public relations problem.
As always though, interested in hearing what everyone else has to think on this. :)