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# Effective Freedom and Collective Autonomy

Chapter 5: Control II, from Anarchist Cybernetics by Thomas Swann (2020)

*mZargham, April 14, 2022*

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### Disambiguating Autonomy

![](https://i.imgur.com/34BwHrJ.jpg)

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### Collective Autonomy

*is the collectively determined capacity and scope an individual or group has to decide and act within the constraints set by collective organisation.*

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### Functional Autonomy

*the degree of flexibility an individual or group within an organisation has to respond to complexity as they see fit*

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### Autonomy is Relative

Our reading defined **Functional Autonomy** as tactical autonomy but made some references to goals and/or purpose.

**tactical autonomy** is defined with respect to a purpose or goal, so we need a notion of **strategic autonomy** that accounts for goal setting.

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### Autonomy is Relative

Whether as an individual or a group, **Political Autonomy** is most often autonomy *from* some other actor(s), individuals or groups.

It is commonly understood **Individual Autonomy** is in tension with **Collective Autonomy** because no individual exists totally independent of others.

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### Intuition Check 1

*Would you get an an "Autonomous Car" if you didn't get to decide where it was going to take you?*

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### Intuition Check 2

I wouldn't.

My Invidividual Autonomy in this case leads me to want Strategic (Functional) Autonomy.

I want to decide the Autonomous Car's goal(destination); what the car actually should have is Tactical (Functional) Autonomy.

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### Intuition Check 3

If it is an Autonomous Police Car, i may not get a choice!

In this case, my individual autonomy is being superceded by collective autonomy, as manifest by a (hopefully legitimate) government.

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### Constraints on Autonomy

1. autonomous parts must operate in coordination with other autonomous parts;
2. autonomous parts must operate within the intentions of the whole organisation; and
3. autonomous parts must face the possibility of being excluded from the organisation as a whole.

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### Consensus Decision Making

**Technical:** Consensus Protocols provide a means through which software agents in a peer-to-peer network agree on a shared state (eg canonical chain).

Political $\rightarrow$ Collective Autonomy

Functional $\rightarrow$ Tactical Autonomy

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### Consensus Decision Making

**Social:** Consensus (or the weaker consent) decision making aims to create shared rules and/or goals that everyone can support (or at least live with)

Political $\rightarrow$ Collective Autonomy

Functional $\rightarrow$ Strategic Autonomy

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### Effective Freedom

both **Functional Autonomy** and **Collective Autonomy** are defined, in part, as a negotiation between individualism and collectivism, between the desire for operational freedom and the need to remain part of an *overarching organisation*

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### Protocols

such as those used in peer-to-peer networks are clearly stated rules such that failure to adhere is tantamount to (self) exclusion.

similar mechanisms in social systems include etiquette and other in-group signalling rituals.

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### Legitimacy

*‘The freedom we embrace’, Beer writes, ‘must yet be “in control”. That means that people must endorse the regulatory model at the heart of the viable system in which they partake’ (1974: 88).*

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### Legitimacy

Protocols (or rules) which constrain individual autonomy, may offer those same individuals a degree of tactical autonomy. 

Those constraints may be seen as legitimate (by those persons) insofar as this enables the expression of collective autonomy pursuant to goals 

Only if those same persons had strategic autonomy over those goals

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$\dot x = f(x) \,_\blacksquare$