Patri Friedman, hijo de David, hace una excelente reflexión en Cato Unbound sobre el activismo liberal, la futilidad de la política y el proselitismo, y su defensa de un ecosistema experimental en el que los liberales crean sus comunidades y compiten con otros modelos sociales. Patri considera cuatro alternativas: el Free State Project, la cripto-anarquía (transacciones con dinero digital, encriptado y anónimo), la anarquía de mercado, y su propia propuesta: Seasteading (la progresiva creación de pequeñas colonias en aguas internacionales).
Vale la pena leer el artículo entero, pero yo solo copio su crítica del activismo y el proselitismo, que en su opinión no conducen a nada y son el simple apéndice evolutivo de nuestro pasado tribal.
Our brains have many specific adaptations tuned for the hunter-gatherer environment in which we evolved, which in some ways differs wildly from the modern world. Consider the prevalence of obesity: we eat according to outdated instincts, feasting before a famine that never comes, rather than adapting to our new world of caloric abundance.
(...) In early human tribes, there were few enough people in each social structure such that anyone could change policy. If you didn’t like how the buffalo meat got divvied up, you could propose an alternative, build a coalition around it, and actually make it happen. Success required the agreement of tens of allies — yet those same instincts now drive our actions when success requires the agreement of tens of millions. When we read in the evening paper that we’re footing the bill for another bailout, we react by complaining to our friends, suggesting alternatives, and trying to build coalitions for reform. This primal behavior is as good a guide for how to effectively reform modern political systems as our instinctive taste for sugar and fat is for how to eat nutritiously.
Folk activism broadly corrupts political movements. It leads activists to do too much talking, debating, and proselytizing, and not enough real-world action. We build coalitions of voters to attempt to influence or replace tribal political and intellectual leaders rather than changing system-wide incentives.
El artículo de Patri me parece criticable en varios aspectos (y no estoy convencido de que su propuesta del Seasteading tenga futuro), pero eso es materia para otra entrada.
