March 20, 2001

Politics.
Dirty word? Yes.
Somehow the people in my life have got it into their heads that I should run for office. I'm not sure what I think of that idea. As an anarchist, I really don't like the idea of participating in a process that I fundamentally disagree with. On the other hand, I have a big enough ego that I am both flattered by the idea and sure that I would better represent any given constituency than the idiots that are normally attracted to politics.
I've been examining my beliefs on anarchism and politics recently. Things were a lot clearer when I was an eighteen year old anarchist punk rocker. My idealism still exists, but to a certain extent it has been coloured by experience, and a lot of cynicism has crept in. The system as it stands does not work, that much is true. I still believe that any system that has the threat of violence as it's root is evil, and is slavery by another name. The real questions are what are the best methods of creating that better society. Armed revolution is always an option, but definitely not a good option. Currently I see the open source methodology for creating software as a good model of anarchist organisation. How do we translate a post-scarcity model like open source development of software to the scarcity world of distributing food? I don't have the answers but I'm trying to come up with options in my little pea head.
Another thing I've been trying to reconcile is my work and my beliefs. I work for a family business. It is a jewellery design and manufacturing company
. There is nothing that relies more on scarcity than the industry I find myself in … and that's been hard, but I'll write my justification for that for my next post.
It's bedtime now.