Socialism Eight
We also sacrifice some of our humanity, if not on a social level, on a more personal one. Thus, we become what we hate the most.
I agree. The reality is that as we get older we do become more conservative and more resigned to the ways of the world. Our ideas change and sometimes I think we start to see some sense in things we once thought were stupid. I’m trying not to do that too much but I must admit it is happening to me. ‘Compromise’ is often used in a context which insinuates a negative eg to compromise your beliefs, but compromise is about accepting that everything that we believe personally is not necesarrily the only or correct way. I had a look at the Tao Te Ching translation I have at home (penguin classics, I believe it is one of the best translations available. Not so poetic but a more direct and significant translation than others) and the last chapter, 81, that I mentioned (I think??) starts,
Truthful words are not beautiful,
Beautiful words are not the truth.
Persuasive words are not enlightened,
Enlightened words are not persuasive.
etc.
I haven’t got it with me, so I can’t remember the rest, but one way of interpreting it is that Lao Tse is saying, don’t listen to me, just do the best you can for others and the rest will fall into place. As far as politics goes, I suppose that I think that it relates to the element of reasonable compromise for the greater good.
The quote that you mentioned also has heaps more text which makes it clearer and more complicated at the same time
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Mmmmmm. OK. No further discussion needed then?? …Don’t think so. This is a summary of what I think is needed.
Find out what the people need
Find out what the people want
Figure out how to supply it
Figure out how to administer it
Socialism Five
I must admit that it’s only going on anacdotal evidence but I can see how living in America could make any normal person take the Anarchist (by your definition) line. It would seem to be a case of Capitalism gone crazy.
In Australia, although ‘economic rationalism’ has dented it a bit, social services here are not bad. Rents have doubled over the last 5 or so years and social services benefits have not increased accordingly, but most people who have a social network can make ends meet. We also have a fairly good public health system and services, like the one I work in, funded by the government. I work with homeless young people with a variety of different issues and I’m not sure how those people would be serviced in an anarchist society.
The original question was
Question: Is there a better way we have not yet used? Another form of government that we have not come up with.
I’m not sure if there are any truly ‘new’ ones, but I think th point of the question was to try to come up with something that ‘works’ better on a large scale.
I don’t have the solutions but maybe all of us, working together could put something together. You don’t necesarrily have to believe fully in every aspect but I think the key is being willing to compromise for the greater good. I’d be very interested in trying a project like this.
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Firstly, Douglas Adams should be declared a prophet.
Secondly, Are you agreeing then that in large scale communities, Anarchy may not be a reasonable form of government?
Thirdly,
By your reasoning all Native Americans should have settled for being called “Indians”, Blacks should have settled for being called negroes and other derrogatory terms, etc.
Interesting point only they weren’t originally meant to be derrogatory terms. I believe that, Native Americans were called Indians because they thought they had landed in India. The term just stuck. Africans were called Negroes because that was the generic term for the African races and was later transformed into the more unpleasant version because of mispronunciation. When new, more appropriate terms were coined, Native American and African-American, they were used instead. In Australia we are still struggling and use Indigenous Australian, Aborigine and Koori although strictly speaking Kooris are from only a small part of Australia. There are so many different tribes and languages that to generalise and lump people into one group seems somehow condescending. I’m sure the same things apply to Indigenous or Native Americans.
How does this relate to the use of the word Anarchist? What is being said is that it is important that everyone is clear on a definition of the word. If Anarcho-socialist is a better discription of the way you live then that should probably be used rather than just straight Anarchist. Look at the dates on the definitions and you’ll see that they have been around for quite a while. Pre suffregette, even pre Industrial. That said, it’s interesting to note that in the original draft of the Websters (I think??) dictionary, that a whole lot of definitions were actually submitted by a guy who was locked up in an Asylum. There’s a book about it.
I’m a huge fan of the type of Communal-Anarchistic lifestyle you are talking about. I just think it ends up being a bit exclusionist. In a larger context I think it’s important to be inclusive and have a safety net for people who don’t ‘fit in’ to the bigger picture. I work in the welfare field supporting marginalised people and it’s hard enough when there are services set up. Not to have any sort of organised mechanisms for them would be a nightmare.
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Main Entry: an·ar·chism
Pronunciation: ‘a-n&r-”ki-z&m, -”när-
Function: noun
Date: 1642
1 : a political theory holding all forms of governmental authority to be unnecessary and undesirable and advocating a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups
2 : the advocacy or practice of anarchistic principles
Pronunciation: ‘a-n&r-kist, -”när-
Function: noun
Date: 1678
1 : one who rebels against any authority, established order, or ruling power
2 : one who believes in, advocates, or promotes anarchism or anarchy; especially : one who uses violent means to overthrow the established order
From the Anarchist FAQ page
“While there are many different types of anarchism (from individualist anarchism to communist-anarchism … , there has always been two common positions at the core of all of them — opposition to government and opposition to capitalism.”
I am not totally against decentralised power, but where does anarchy that you are talking about end, and socialism start. Who is it that takes care of disputes? One might say that local groups deal with it, but if my brother lives in your group and is dealt with in a way that my group disagrees with you start to have problems. I can’t see any way around having at least some sort of concensus on basic principles. Even if this is just some sort of constitution. Also, how do you arrange public services and manufacturing. If one group starts a factory making widgits and widgits become a popular or even necessary item, how do you stop them selling them at inflated prices and turning into capitalism. What about people who don’t want to or can’t work? Who supports them? What about specialisation? One of the advantages of being able to sell your labour, which it seems Anarchy disagrees with, is that you can specialise. What about health care, public transport? There are a million different reasons why this seems impossible on the large scale.
I imagine you might end up with groups deciding to make local laws anyway and virtually split the land up into seperate ‘countries’ which might end up warring against each other over beliefs. If you want true ‘freedom’, you would have to allow this to happen in groups who agreed on it, there would also be no-one to stop them. Anarchism by your definition can work in small communities I suppose. But a commune of people who have all come together because of common interests and beliefs is not the same as society.
I’m not trying to be negative here. I suppose I personally just believe in centralised government which encourages free, non-violent expression and where all participants have safety and an equal go, no matter what part of society you come from. I just can’t see how a libertarian/anarchy model can cater for this.
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About the Japan maximum wage stuff. If there is a link that would be great but I’m wondering if there was some confusion. I found this link and I’m wondering if this is where the mix up is. It’s a British parlimentary speech. Here’s a snippit
“That leave be given to bring in a Bill to fix the emoluments of chairpersons, chief executives and senior managers of private limited companies and public bodies so that their combined annual earnings do not exceed twenty times the average take-home pay of their non-managerial employees save if the said employees agree through a ballot of their non- managerial employees or through their union to permit salaries of their chairpersons, chief executives and senior managers to exceed a 20:1 ratio.”
It uses examples of many other countries where the ratio is lower. Japan for example is between 8 and 12 to 1.
About meritocracy, one problem is that you have to assume that the right person for the job is actually interested in it. When Israel asked Einstein to be their president, he wasn’t interested. What about if you wanted a fantastic medical person to head the health department. Then they couldn’t do medicine. Politics isn’t a 40 hour a week job. Even if you think most politicians are morons, you have to concede that they put in 80 or more hours a week into the job. It is a lifestyle. Politicians would also argue that they are elected because of who they are and the ideals they believe in.
No. Democracy means majority rule. “Pure” democracy would mean everyone votes for every law that is ever passed. There would be no president or legislature. It’d be a mess, but thats not anarcy. Anarchy is the complete absence of any government including all the functions of government such as passing laws.
Exactly. Functional Anarchy relies on people either doing the right thing or dealing with their oen problems. So if someone does something wrong, you, or your local group ‘deal with it’. Pure democracy relies on referendum. With technology today this could probably happen but the majority of people don’t care about, or have the time to worry about every little law.
Just for fun, here is the start of a prescription for an ideal government.
1. There is a myth that money can’t buy happiness. This is only partly true. Concerns about not being able to make ends meet causes huge problem in society. It impacts on relationships, effects health, enflames jealousy, is related to poor education etc., etc. The list goes on from there. Although money might not buy happiness, removal of the stresses caused by not having it could be eleviated so that people could work on other aspects of their lives in comfort and financial security. What does money mean though. Basically money means the ability to have housing, warmth, food, clothing, communications, transport, and a reasonable amount of what are seen a necesarry houshold goods. These days that includes TV, dvd, computer, soundsystem, microwave, furniture etc. (Using the TV as an example, the government might only produce a few sizes of plasma TV and maybe a projector, then produce a variety of covers. What would you prefer, paying hundreds of dollars for a CRT or getting say a Large and medium sized plasma screen with a choice of covers) The government of the day needs to be able to provide these things in abundance by producing them themselves. The actual cost of these things is not high and is only worth the labour invested when you exclude profit and taxes. There would also need to be scope for ‘cottage industries’ to fill gaps in service. These might be approved on submission of a business plan identifying these gaps just like if you were getting finance in the private sector. Pay structure might start out lower then as the business started succeeding, raised to tie in with the incentive scheme.
2. Wages. There needs to be a formula for wages. Possibly based on things like physical labour, expertise required, responsibility level etc. There also needs to be some incentives. What to do if someone decides to go into another line of work. Possibly a board or commitee of a ‘factory’ could vote on a financial incentive to keep someone they thought was of great value to the industry. Also providing financial incentives for quality or more efficient work. You could also give the option, where appropriate, to give the option of work sharing arrangements to reduce hours as an incentive.
3. Jobs nobody wants. Ideally you would try to create an environment where people had a choice about the work they did and the opportunity to train for other work. Where work could be replaced by machines this would be done. Where there was no choice, you would provide the incentives above.
4. Doesn’t money encourage innovation. Well….I’m not so sure. Applying the incentive scheme to innovation might encourage this without the huge payout. Looking at the Open Source phenomenon, one could also assume that, given the opportunity, people will innovate and create of their own accord. Fame or notoriety, leaving a legacy that people are aware of is also encouragement. Promotion and encouragement of these achievements by the state would be important. How many scientists would be happy jsut to spend time developing different do-dads if they didn’t have to worry about how they were going to pay their bills?
This is just a start. I have more bits but not the time at the moment to add them. Please comment on problems and additions.
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