Collectivism, by definition, requires the use of force against people who aren’t complaint with the “collective”, so it requires violence.
It’s a lot easier to commit violence against people when you can outsource it to someone else, so collectivism requires a strong, central authority. The less local that authority is, the less culpable we can convince ourselves we are when it goes wrong. The reason we keep building these large, dysfunctional political systems is because taking responsibility is hard, and most people don’t want to put in the effort.
You can absolutely have voluntary collectivism where you simply do not do things unless everyone agrees upon them. This works best in small or medium sized groups and probably does not work for large groups, but your post reads like you think collectivism always necessitates violence and that simply isn’t true.
>> And what do you do if someone disagrees with the crowd? How do you force him without coercieon? (hint those two words are synonyms).
I think as the parent poster was saying, this is possible with smaller groups. I think the best example would be townships in the US. Different townships decide on the level of tax and investing (especially into school systems.) Then, individuals self-select themselves into groups by choosing where to live.
I have friends upset about how not all schools are "top-tier" schools. I quote "top-tier" as it is in the eye of the beholder what that means. The thing is, not everyone wants their kids to have 5hrs of homework a night. Nor does everyone want to pay 20k+ in annual property taxes. Some would rather home-school or send their kids to private or parochial schools.
People often achieve this by joining a township that agrees with their appetites in spending and other political choices.
Alright. It is a township then. I refuse to go by the collective will. What happens next if violence is not an option and private property is respected?
In general, you have the same three choices you have in any other situation where you don't like what's going on: loyalty, voice, or exit.
In the first, you decide to accept the general will in order to maintain your individual credit, hoping that by cooperating on this occasion you encourage people to encourage with you later. Alternatively, you can protest the decision, hoping in doing so to encourage your fellow townspeople to change their mind, or to raise the reputation cost to them of proceeding down that route. And if you don't like that either, you can leave (highly visibly or otherwise).
Not all collective decision-making processes are coercive, either, FWIW. There are systems built on unanimity where your issue doesn't even arise: if you dislike the decision of the other group members enough then you can veto the decision. This creates other issues (and doesn't scale very well) but it does happen.
You never leave your property and live a happy life in solitude there until you die of boredom or starvation. Everybody is happy to not have to interact with you anymore.
Now stop bringing up absurd examples. Just living in a state exposes you to state violence, e.g. for not obeying the (tax) law.
If you wanted a realistic example of non-violent society, there are only few, mostly small remote tribes in deep jungle. Not surprisingly, those are very collectivist societies. The standard response to repeated badly non-conforming behavior in such societies is eviction from the community. Yes, that can be done non-violently.
I think the person meant about how the few options available actually come to existence: how are they come to be the ones that would allow the person to pick one over the other? Is it common sense, is it because it was decided this way.. How?
I think there are a lot of options. Across US states, counties, and townships, for example, there is a full spectrum of political positions literally w/r/t how money is collected (or not) and spent (or not)
I gave you an answer. You can suck it up, complain, or leave. And yes, those choices are unpleasant.
If this was supposed to be a 'actually it all comes down to the threat of violence' gotcha then, sure - if you insist on your property rights, don't pay your taxes and then decide to fight the bailiffs you're going to have a bad time. Sorry.
You did not answer - you listed my options and I was asking for the reaction of the collective. Because I know that functional illiteracy is becoming a serious problem, I'll do my best to help you: "How exactly are they going to limit my options to those, what are they going to do specifically?"
Specifically, the township would put a property tax lien on your property. Eventually, the liens would pile up and your property would have so many liens you'd have no value left in your house. Then the township would take you to court to enforce their right to collect the judgements. At that point, you'd most likely be forced to move out. The township would sell your home to recover the tax liens and judgements. A sheriff would forcibly remove you from your home in such cases.
Presumably, you could buy another home in the same township, and go thru all the above processes again. OR you could choose one of the original options given by a parent post:
You will starve as people refuse to provide you food, or allow you to use collective infrastructure, unless you leave. Your property will then become collective property.
Depending on the scenario, potentially nothing.
There are certainly times and topics where people can break from the collective, with no hard feelings or repercussions on either side.
In rural areas, this is typically how it works. Laws are more of suggestions, and unless you are causing a big problem for someone you are likely to be left alone.
While the “ism” suggests an ideology rather than an attribute of a real world society, what you describe is the essential balance every society needs to strike between the group and the individuals, and so you find jail and fines as coercion across a wide variety of countries and systems.
As a native English speaker myself, I urge you to get into etymology and understand socius and collective and community and thereby inoculate yourself against a weird strain of anti logic parading as American political discourse and often used by folks who know better sponsored by the federalist society and Cato institute and such… typically for lowbrow crowd appeal.
No society, by definition, is free from a collective aspect.
If you define collectivism is group activity enforced by violence vs voluntarism being group activity not enforced by violence then this entire discussion is a word game and a waste of time.
You can have voluntary collectivism. This is where everyone works to find agreement with the group as a matter of course, but only proceeds if that agreement is found. You might find this kind of management in a collectively owned business for example.
You’re missing the point. You don’t force anyone. If someone doesn’t want to do the thing, you don’t make them. You find a different way to accomplish your goals.
It would be possible to simply give up on the collectivism if someone disagrees and can't be persuaded otherwise. This of course limits where such collectivism can be found, but examples of this kind of collectivism do exist.
Another hint: coercion is not necessarily direct violence.
Capitalism is almost completely coercive and controlling, but direct violence is mostly reserved for minorities and for war adventures in distant countries.
At home it's coercive through financial violence (especially income restriction and forced debt), extreme economic apartheid, and overt and covert behaviour modification narratives in the various media.
"The crowd" is very much not in charge of any of this, but is persuaded that it is.
Arguably all of this is better than a more overtly dictatorial system where any form of dissent attracts direct violence. But it's not necessarily less coercive - just less obvious. And more efficient.
You can scale that back and have collective systems which rely on a tradition of consensus. It's not even all that unusual on a smaller scale. Teams/groups make decisions, some people disagree, but when consensus is reached everyone works towards the same goals even if they have misgivings.
This works if you allow feedback, goal monitoring, and resets so the system is responsive and self-correcting. But it also requires all participants to be rational, reasonably intelligent, non-sociopathic, and capable of adult decision making.
Which is why it doesn't work at scale. Only about half the population - at best - has those abilities, and as soon as your group includes at least one sociopath they will destroy that dynamic and replace it with a toxic one which relies more on coercion than consensus.
Unconscious people being taken by an ambulance to the hospital. The falsely accused needing legal representation and to pay a bail bondsman to get out of prison.
Do those examples work for you for people being physically punished for refusing to take on debt? Because I'm also happy to include sick people who need medical care and people who need money for food/heat/shelter/clothiers as being punished physically for refusing to take on debt by being deprived of those things
Punishment goes beyond physical means. You have the choice between poverty, or debt, which is definitely a form of coercion. Coercion is the use of a power differential to make someone act against their interests, physical force is not necessary.
Humans are collectivist by nature. It's why we've survived for so long and formed societies. People have to be taught to be divided which is why so much work has to be put into keeping things that way (ideology, class, race, ethnicity).
Violence comes in when one small privileged group wants to maintain power.
It's the same with any system. Private ownership requires the use of force against people who aren't complaint with the idea that they shouldn't own things instead, so it requires violence.
Also, by definition, anarchist collectivism has no strong central authority. People who aren't compliant probably shouldn't be living in an anarchist collective in the first place, but choice of social/economic system is sadly not granted as an option. In so much of the world today, people are forced to live under capitalism, like it or not. And people claim that this is "freedom"
It’s a lot easier to commit violence against people when you can outsource it to someone else, so collectivism requires a strong, central authority. The less local that authority is, the less culpable we can convince ourselves we are when it goes wrong. The reason we keep building these large, dysfunctional political systems is because taking responsibility is hard, and most people don’t want to put in the effort.