The basis of Ambiarchist philosophy is the metaphysics of Ambitheism, which suggests that the material-physical world is governed by entropic processes, while spiritual-psychical processes are syntropic in nature. In other words, while the natural material world of dead things tends to external disorder, the thoughts and willpower of life tends toward internal order.
The metaphysics of Ambitheism are used to describe a Universe which is possible of giving rise to both government and anarchy. These must be governed by the same laws, as they are housed under the same roof, and yet they appear so different to one another. Ambitheism provides an explanation as to why anarchy de facto was displaced by states, and that reason is that biological organisms tend evermore toward order. This is not to suggest that an ordered anarchy is impossible— and in fact Ambiarchy is intended to pass for such an anarchy if it needs to—, but it does suggest that there is a difference in quality between the types of anarchy we find. That is, between the antiorganizationalist, primitivistic, anarchy de facto, and the organizationalist, futuristic, anarchy de jure. The difference is crucial, particularly because anarchy de facto lost to the state, while anarchy de jure hopes to replace the state. This entails a difference in behavior amongst their constituents.
Like dogs, humans have been domesticated. Dogs used to be wolves. They were wild. It was only through domestication that the dangerous wolf became the loving dog. Today’s dogs have lost much of their survival instincts in favor of social skills that give them human favor. While dogs cannot communicate with one another, this may primarily be due to their inability to vocalize words. They clearly understand simple commands from humans. Were they able to communicate together, they may be capable of much more than the wolf.
Human domestication is different. While humans of the underclass have certainly faced selective pressures from their rulers, their demeanor has changed in a manner that is functional to them. Unlike dogs, humans are capable of communicating with one another, and so had the prerequisites to make direct use of their changes. That is, humans, in being selected for obedience in much the same way as animals, have become more docile, but it is a docility which can be shared between them, and not just with their master. Humans can understand one another.
This creates an interesting predicament, in which the masters have selected their subjects for potentially beneficial changes, which they had not selected for themselves. Could this work in favor of the lower class? Their docility, while problematic on an individual level, appears to make them more capable of combination and compromise than their rulers are capable of, and so appears as though it was an asset for a larger incorporated body. Were the lower classes to use this collective effort, and set aside their docility long enough, there is no doubt it would come out on top. It could establish an anarchy de jure, or good government, where before there was bad government.
Ambiarchists suggest that something similar has happened a number of times in history, but most prominently with the republican revolutions that followed the Enlightenment. Such revolutions were carried out by upper-tier commoners, the burgher or merchant classes, whose families had long been less than nobility. They had been raised to be comparatively docile to the nobles who governed them, but had combined their docility into ferocious combinations. Secret societies, coffee and tea houses, discussion parlors, letter networks, and more flowed with the gentility of the bourgeois revolutionaries. Without manners and etiquette, such a revolution could not have come about. Indeed, the nobility before them had relied on similar things to establish their dominance, such as chivalry and fealty, before demanding docility from those who were conquered. Before that, honor was a compelling mechanism. Each of these combined their docility into combinations more ferocious, and established themselves as the next ruling class.
Today, we are in a unique situation. In modern republics, we have nearly-universal formal political suffrage, in which the majority’s blessing is, at least in theory, sought after. The class system in modern republics is less rooted in political structure than it is in economics. While nearly everyone is politically enfranchised, they are economically disenfranchised. This in turn makes them effectively disenfranchised politically, because those who are economically enfranchised have the power to fund campaigns and persuade politicians, while those who are economically disenfranchised do not.
All other revolutions have been against political class systems, but the one sought by Ambiarchists is fundamentally against economic class systems. As such, this is the rebellion that could put an end to class stratification altogether. It is time to change things.
In Ambiarchist theory, it is understood that elites are not classes unto themselves, but are members of a class who stand out as naturally more influencial, not because of material privileges, but because of their inborn endowments. Further, it is understood that ruling class elites compose the government and major corporations, and manage the state, but that they do so as trustees of sorts, on behalf of the ruling, or political, class at large. More still, Ambiarchists expect that a classless and even stateless society will still have its elite members. However, it is expected that these elites, like the elites of the present ruling class, will gain their status by manner of their valuable contributions to society, and not by special privilege. It must be remembered that while class is a matter of privilege, that status is a matter of contribution. That is, one’s status within one’s class depends on how much one has done to benefit that class. The elites among a particular class are its most outstanding members. This is as true in the working class as it is in the employing class.
In an embrace of the Ambiarchist elite, Ambiarchy rejects a flatland democracy in which a majority rules a minority, or elects someone to do so in their stead. Instead, Ambiarchy is meritocratic, holarchic, and consent-oriented. Rather than majorities having the final say, consensus is sought. As in holacracy, Ambiarchy sorts responsibilities into roles, which are ultimately governed by a consent-based constitution. One acts within the guidelines of one’s roles, which everyone has agreed to in the living constitution. Rather than elections for executive positions, executive roles are filled after a display of merit. This merit is gauged through various devices, most notably ongoing peer review.
While Ambiarchists also embrace the tactics of mutual credit, syndicalism, agorism, and communalism, they have a new card to play on the table. This new card is inspired by the philosophy of Deng Xiaoping, but is given a counter-economic element. Deng Xiaoping believed that, because China had not been industrialized, and had not gone through the proper stages of capitalism, that it would be necessary to create and accelerate the stages of capitalism, to build up the Chinese economy, before socialism could be brought about. To this end, the “socialist market economy,” or Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, employs methods of state capitalism, having nationalized or regulated many of its industries.
Ambiarchists, tied to the necessitarianism of Ambitheism, agree with Deng Xiaoping that capitalism must precede socialism, and believe that this is true in not only the mainstream economies nurtured by governments, but also in counter-economies, as a matter of natural law. To this end, and similar to Chinese socialism, or state capitalism, but in a libertarian fashion, Ambiarchists engage in socialized capitalism, or cooperative capitalism. This takes the form of workers forming cooperative holding companies, and running capitalistic operating companies in concert, agreeing to share the profits from such endeavors, effectively socializing capitalism on behalf of these workers. A large number of workers pool their money into the holding company, a small number of them are selected to be CEOs of operating companies, being paid a salary to do so on behalf of the holding cooperative. Apathetic workers, who are disinterested in direct-action, will be hired and exploited on behalf of those who engage in direct-action, as it should be.
The idea does not stop at Deng Xiaoping’s reasoning, but includes the logic that socialists should not so readily extend their values to those who disagree with them. Instead, they should remain more insular and exclusive, lest they be taken advantage of, or held back. Exploiters stand by ready to exploit, and socialists should be ready to exploit in return.
Apathetic workers refuse to give a hand to getting out of this mess. There is no need to leave the politically apathetic workers to be exploited by the capitalists, when we can do it. I know this sounds bad, but they’re exploited day in and day out anyway, and voluntarily so. Why let the capitalists receive the benefit of this in private, when we can cooperatively exploit this resource? Clearly, the workers don’t care. We need to stop romanticizing workers as a uniform bunch, and give priority to the revolutionary, organized, worker.
Remember, Ambiarchy is laid atop an egoistic foundation of jungle law, where anything goes. We recognize, however, that governments have laid laws atop this, which the population has come to expect to be enforced. As such, we can never drop fully to jungle law, except in the most dire of circumstances. So, we abide by the laws of the state when they are convenient for us, and in the case of exploiting wage workers, from our position as a minority, it is convenient to follow the dictates of the state. Thus, wage workers will be no more exploited under Ambiarchy than they are under the state, and those who are exploited at all, will be voluntarily so, in response to their obstinence. They will not be killed, harmed, or exploited beyond that which they already are under the capitalist system that they tacitly accept, or any further than that sanctioned by the laws of the current government. The only change is who the beneficiary of the exploitation is, whether it is private or cooperative.
As not to become a state itself (or, at least, so as to be a good one), or to solidify a ruling class, the Ambiarchy will always leave the doors of the Academy open, wherein one can ascend to the status of Ambiarch, and become a beneficiary of the holding cooperative. The Ambiarchy will keep the barriers to entry as low as is possible, such that over time it can be expected that everyone may receive full economic emancipation through the Ambiarchy. When this occurs, there will be no more wage labor to draw from and employ, and so worker cooperation will be the sole means of earning a living, effectively turning the renting and rentier classes into owner-operators.
The holding cooperative can begin to generate cooperatives with its profit, and other kinds of programs as well. Dual power institutional infrastructure for a counter-economy can be initiated with funds from the cooperative holding company; infrastructure that is essential to getting such a startup counter-economy operational. Strike support could be paid to members who are still wage workers to external employers. Syndicalists and agorists alike could affiliate through the cooperative holding company, with a common purpose in mind: the destruction of capitalism.
Revolutions of the past have suffered from not providing anything on the revolutionary worker’s table, while still demanding their unending participation. Agorism, mutualism, syndicalism, and communalism have been the most successful of providing a theoretical solution to this problem, as by providing high earnings in the gray market, ducking past usury, union victories, and community infrastructure, but none of these have successfully been put to practice in a sufficiently sustainable manner, because the startup costs and risks are so high. Ambiarchy with Chinese Characteristics could provide a means for workers to collaborate with low cost and risk, pooling their resources first into mutual funds and REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts), and then into functional operating companies. As more operating companies are started, workers can quit their day jobs to become captains of industry, shifting from private to cooperative employment, and becoming a cooperative capitalist, in the long-term transition away from capitalism. In the long term, the operating companies should expect to transition to a cooperative mode of production and distribution.
All of this should be legal, as far as I understand it (but don’t take my word for it!). It’s certainly legal to exploit workers in capitalist society, so doing so cooperatively should be no problem. Our notions of workers being exploited are idealist, not realist, ones. Further, it seems perfectly possible for associations to be owners or members of for-profit businesses. Indeed, business unions of the past have earned interest on their strike funds, and have owned resorts and golf courses, among other things. There seems no reason a cooperative association of revolutionary workers should be barred from similar legal protection, or from that given to holding companies.
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