*** Welcome to piglix ***

Panarchy


Panarchy (from and ), coined by Paul Emile de Puydt in 1860, is a form of governance that would encompass all others. The Oxford English Dictionary lists the noun as "chiefly poetic" with the meaning "a universal realm," citing an 1848 attestation by Philip James Bailey, "the starry panarchy of space". The adjective panarchic "all-ruling" has earlier attestations. In the twentieth century the term was re-coined separately by scholars in international relations to describe the notion of global governance and then by systems theorists to describe non-hierarchical organizing theories.

In his 1860 article "Panarchy" de Puydt, who also expressed support for laissez-faire economics, applied the concept to the individual's right to choose any form of government without being forced to move from their current locale. This is sometimes described as "extra-territorial" (or "exterritorial") since governments often would serve non-contiguous parcels of land. De Puydt wrote:

The truth is that there is not enough of the right kind of freedom, the fundamental freedom to choose to be free or not to be free, according to one's preference....Thus I demand, for each and every member of human society, freedom of association according to inclination and of activity according to aptitude. In other words, the absolute right to choose the political surroundings in which to live, and to ask for nothing else.

De Puydt described how such a system would be administered:

In each community a new office is opened, a "Bureau of Political Membership". This office would send every responsible citizen a declaration form to fill in, just as for the income tax or dog registration: Question: What form of government would you desire? Quite freely you would answer, monarchy, or democracy, or any other... and once registered, unless you withdrew your declaration, respecting the legal forms and delays, you would thereby become either a royal subject or citizen of the republic. Thereafter you are in no way involved with anyone else's government—no more than a Prussian subject is with Belgian authorities.

De Puydt’s definition of panarchy was expanded into a political philosophy of panarchism. It has been espoused by anarchist or libertarian-leaning individuals, including especially Max Nettlau and John Zube.


...
Wikipedia

...