Artwork by Brian Dean at RAW Semantics
RAW Semantics has a new blog post up, "RAW political #5 – global / local / po," which further wrestles with RAW's politics in the light of the new book. Some of it discusses globalism versus local control, but there is also an interesting section which suggests how to reconcile Robert Anton Wilson's praise for Scandinavian style social democracy with RAW's interest in anarchism. One excerpt:
"Returning to anarchy for a moment – if you see anarchism in terms of no government, no tax (and perhaps no regulations), then RAW’s liking for the Swedish model seems to contradict his anarchist ideals. But if you think of anarchist societies as decentralised, egalitarian, cooperative, communicating in flatter hierarchies, etc, then the seeming contradiction dissolves. Even the anarchistic preference for contracts – voluntary agreements rather than top-down enforcement – factors historically in the Swedish model (eg resulting from a relative absence of both feudalism and tyrants as kings).
"The Scandinavian system has succeeded on a large (national) scale over decades, unlike the mostly unimplemented alternative systems RAW held as anarchist ideals. From that POV, it looks “global” next to, say, the 120-person voluntary-contractual community. But next to the international Neoliberal order, it looks (or looked) 'local' – an eccentric exception to universal 'laws'. The Scandinavian countries finally had to adapt to some global shifts (eg changes to international financial markets), but even before those periods (eg 1990s) they were never really insulated from the 'inexorable forces of the market'. On the contrary – Sweden, for example, had to export 40% of its manufactured output and had been, since the late 19th century, 'a world economy highly exposed to trends in international trade.'
"You can see the Swedish model as workable on both local and global levels. At least for that type of culture."
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