Part 2 of 2
No, the biggest problem with our current form of unrestricted representative democracy is a large, perhaps even majority, of the people have learned that they can vote themselves benefits and money from the taxes while passing those taxes onto others. What you mention is a problem, but not nearly as big as the self entitlement vote.
Then why are they all still so poor? What? You can't actually vote yourself the public treasury? It doesn't work that way? Of course!
As to your whole socialism thing. Yeah, right, we all will transform into Mother Theresa overnight and never ever do anything selfish again. Good luck with that. If you haven't noticed, we have a large number of Americans who chose not to work at all because they can live off the government and still have a level of wealth and standard of living greater than the majority of middle classes in most other countries. And that number is only as small as it is because in the 90's welfare reform was passed, otherwise we would be seeing even more of them.
By "large number", you mean tiny tiny minority who would absolutely embrace a better option if one was available to them.
No. Democracy needs to be limited to those who have shown to care and are willing to place the welfare of society above their own. A period of service in a way that is selfless and places the person in service at great risk with little to no chance of self profit. I.E. Military service, police and Firemen.
But not social workers, adoption agencies, doctors and lawyers not working for exorbitant fees, or basically any profession that helps people without selling your services at a huge markup? Basically, that's the system Douglas proposed, one where everyone does that.
Only those who have done such service for a specified amount of time should be allowed to vote or hold political office. Further, any seeking to hold a political office should be required to complete a professional training course and serve through a series of apprenticeship posts.
Not trained lawyers? Who actually know how law works. Kinda difficult to have the job to change the law if you don't know what it actually says.
The economy needs to be removed from government interference except to enforce rules of fair competition and minimum safety (a few others, but not spelling it all out here). The government should pass no law protecting existing business or any law that hinders the rise of competition.
The two sentences you posit here are mutually exclusive. And further allowing business to concentrate power and wealth in the hands of a few owners is exactly what is digging us further into the ground.
I'm not so naive that I don't think people will be lazy sacks of crap if they could afford it. I understand the power of an extrinsic incentive to get people to do the jobs that need to get done.
No, most people won't. Human beings define ourselves by what we do. And doing nothing is a miserable and unfulfilling life. Almost everyone has more ambition than that, and only a tiny tiny minority would choose to do nothing if given a real choice.
My problem is with how automation isn't used to replace work, it's used to replace workers. If automation continues at it's current rate, we will eventually have to just "create" jobs for the sole purpose of having consumers to buy what the machines make.
Automation will eventually render labor obsolete. If we incorporate that technology into our current system, only the people who own the machines will have any wealth at all and everyone else will be broke. The system based on ownership cannot stand. Even now, there are a lot more people than there is work to do, and if you remove the entire industries that exist just to secure more wealth for the wealthy, maintaining a middle class existence for the whole nation would be easy. We just all put in a little bit of work, and all share the benefits. Almost everyone would do their part in such a system.
All previous forms of communism/socialism have failed because they still had a leader class that decided how the wealth was distributed (and funny enough, they distributed it to themselves).
Well, what do you expect when you give unbridled power to a small group of people? That has really nothing to do with communism or socialism. Any dictatorship, no matter what it calls itself, will do that. Dissemination of power is the key to stopping that, not a capitalist financial system.
My proposal, essentially the Project Venus proposal, implies that we give all the powers of wealth distribution to a computer network.
The system in the last story in I, Robot seemed to work well. The only trouble I see is protecting the computer from outside interference.
The main points of failure are limited to having people fulfill the necessary roles of government and public workers. It's true that there does need to be some form of incentive, just due to human nature, but this incentive doesn't necessarily have to be wealth. I've always admired the "starship troopers" solution, of democracy and other "freedoms" for those who serve these social roles. The main issue is to stop rewarding automation as a path to personal wealth, but not deter it as a path to universal prosperity.
Social pressure is more than enough to get almost everyone to contribute. That's how people feel now, even before the idea of contributing for the greater whole is enshrined in our social consciousness. The problem with the starship troopers model is that it's a fascist, military regime. Full citizenship should not require demonstrating a willingness to kill for the state. But it can certainly require a willingness to work for the benefit of the people. So, those few who refuse to work could be denied full citizenship. That creates the incentive you want just fine.
I agreed with almost everything that DVSentinel said except a little on the last part; capitalistic business WILL continue after a shift towards socialist utopianism, since capitalism stems from basic human behavior and economic theory.
There's nothing socialist about that, nor is capitalism a necessity of humanity. We are a cooperative species. We only fight each other from ignorance and fear. The idea that we have to one up our neighbors by owning things is absolutely not a part of human nature.
The issue I have is with how this competition has always benefited the companies more than the consumers, and this competition is inherent to obtaining wealth. That kind of competition would have no meaning after a utopian shift, except for the same way that we find it on internet forums. To the best of my knowledge, nobody is being paid to post here, and yet we still have a mild competition to give better arguments, facts, proposals, etc. Personal industry would be limited to intellectual, artistic, and athletic ventures, and would be almost universally unpaid. I still believe that there will be human advances of every kind that stem from unpaid or grant based ventures, and that it will progress at a similar or even faster rate to what we have now.
Agreed. People invent and discover new things because they want to, not because they're paid to. But in a system where you have to get paid to do something, monetizing such discoveries and inventions becomes part of the process.
I still acknowledge that the vast, VAST majority of people will just stop doing anything, so there are legitimate flaws. But, the people that will do NOTHING are the same people who are just coasting through life right now; it's not like society is depending on them right now, anyway. The ultimate hope is that everyone will have the chance to figure life out, be productive or consumptive at their leisure, and promote a peaceful advance of humanity.
Again, that is a tiny minority. A life entirely of leisure is actually very unpleasant. People like to have drive, to accomplish things, to feel like they're making a difference. Even if their survival were not linked to it, almost everyone would contribute.
As a libertarian, I acknowledge that nobodies liberties are completely absolute, but I feel that modern capitalism is an infringement on our liberties; no force, physical or social, should be used to make people waste their lives needlessly on jobs that not only don't benefit them, but don't benefit society. (I'm talking about you McDonalds)
Preach it! The idea that you're free because you can choose between the tedious, low-paying jobs offered by people with more power and money than you is nonsense. They have all the freedom, and you have a little bit. The same is true of the freedom to choose between Coke and Pepsi, which is what the market system does. The freedom belongs to the people who decide that those are your choices.
I think a lot of people are supporting the government just to stay in the comfortable "now". Whether socialism is implemented in the next phase of humanity or not isn't really the question, it's going to happen eventually. The real issue is how long is the current ponzi scheme going to last? We can't keep printing money and expect every other country to just keep buying our debt. The debt bubble is going to bust someday, does anyone want to give me there guess? That knowledge would be appreciated; In line with my poll answer, I'm just waiting for the right moment...
When it happens, I really prefer that it not be controlled by a small class of wealthy owners, but rather controlled through law and to the benefit of the people as a whole.
Not sure if you're interested, but from an outside perspective, I'd propose a few very thorough reforms to make a generally very good system work again:
- very strict anti-corruption and anti-lobbyism laws that prohibits "donations" and "sideline jobs" for elected representatives and other offices
- abandoning private donations to political parties and instead provide them with public money in a size tied to their number of votes in the previous election
- SC judges shall no longer be appointed by the respective President, but elected by a two/third majority of House and/or Congress (limiting partisanship of judges; professional expertize should count and respect for what the Constitution actually says)
- breaking up the two-party monopoly on politics by abandoning the majority-system in favor of proportional representation (a party that wins X% of the votes gets X% of the seats) and, i.e., a two-round election for Presidentials (all candidates from the primaries and third parties run in the first turn, and when none reaches 50% of the votes, there is a run-off between the two best from round one)
These changes would be thorough, yet maintain the spirit and general idea of the republican system "of the people, by the people", checks and balances and Constitution, which are all very good ideas, IMO.
I like the gist here. Keep the private money out. That is the biggest thing that needs to change. Return ownership of the government to the people, not to the wealthy. I also very much agree about breaking up the two party system. Instant runoff voting with ranked choices (which would be better, I think, than a two round election, because I think that would end up with the same two party result) and possibly a proportional system would allow other candidates to run successfully and break the partisan gridlock we have now.
They simply can't "waste their time" on politics or political issues; Their lives are too hectic and complex as it is. Maybe some day we will collectively recognize this and take back our responsibilities as American adults.
