I think your depiction of community requiring people to accept abuse from “the community’s authority” comes from growing up in a legal and cultural framework where abusers are systematically protected and rewarded. Where being able to cheat colleagues out of their fair share because the contract is written in just the right way gets you more money than you can ever spend; where victims of rape aren’t allowed to warn each other because the community will judge them for making accusations, or find them guilty of libel.
How could a community in a statist society end up with any other choice than between falling apart or accepting the abuse of the guy the police will protect? But that’s not an inherent property of community, it’s just an inherent property of statism.
That is not to say we have to wait for the end of states for communities to be more egalitarian. The bylaws of a community organization can do a lot of work towards making it more pleasant for its members, similarly to how the democratic Separation of Powers doesn’t solve tyranny but does make it a lot more mild. Ultimately sufficiently dogged abusers will find a gap, but it’s nice for the time that it lasts.
For the more general insight that a community needs some pressure to prevent it from falling apart under internal forces even if those internal forces are neither assisted by outside forces nor empowered through crappy internal bylaws, you’re conflating coersion and incentive. Coersion is typically violent and based on positive punishment. But there are also negative punishment, positive reinforcement, and negative reinforcement. Poor people cooperating to survive is an example of negative reinforcement: their cooperation allows them to use their resources more effectively to avoid harm.
In short, when an authority is abusive: you have three options. Leave, submit, or remove them from power. It is not the fault of communities that states make this last option difficult.
I think your depiction of community requiring people to accept abuse from “the community’s authority” comes from growing up in a legal and cultural framework where abusers are systematically protected and rewarded. Where being able to cheat colleagues out of their fair share because the contract is written in just the right way gets you more money than you can ever spend; where victims of rape aren’t allowed to warn each other because the community will judge them for making accusations, or find them guilty of libel.
How could a community in a statist society end up with any other choice than between falling apart or accepting the abuse of the guy the police will protect? But that’s not an inherent property of community, it’s just an inherent property of statism.
That is not to say we have to wait for the end of states for communities to be more egalitarian. The bylaws of a community organization can do a lot of work towards making it more pleasant for its members, similarly to how the democratic Separation of Powers doesn’t solve tyranny but does make it a lot more mild. Ultimately sufficiently dogged abusers will find a gap, but it’s nice for the time that it lasts.
For the more general insight that a community needs some pressure to prevent it from falling apart under internal forces even if those internal forces are neither assisted by outside forces nor empowered through crappy internal bylaws, you’re conflating coersion and incentive. Coersion is typically violent and based on positive punishment. But there are also negative punishment, positive reinforcement, and negative reinforcement. Poor people cooperating to survive is an example of negative reinforcement: their cooperation allows them to use their resources more effectively to avoid harm.
In short, when an authority is abusive: you have three options. Leave, submit, or remove them from power. It is not the fault of communities that states make this last option difficult.