You are called upon by the next President of the United States to head up a....

[Buffy]

First of all, let me say that I like your system. It might even be popular (although I have some doubts because I'm not sure of your techniques for motivating people yet). But the main issue is still "how do you get there from here?"

Originally Posted by KickAssClown

The issues with the USSR, China, North Korea, Cuba, and other past communist organizations is in the majority their scheme has been a split between communism and fascism. Where a minority of the population control the majority of the population.

I agree with this assessment completely. Do you understand what factors led to this infusion of fascism? Do you have sociological methods of avoiding it? (at the very simplest level, how to avoid the "absolute power corrupts absolutely")...

Originally Posted by KickAssClown

As for the people with all the wealth? Well here's the beautiful thing. They are the minority. 20% of the world owns 80% of the wealth, but as with all games, and money is a game, the system breaks when the players refuse to play.

That is why I have tailored this plan for implementation on the grass roots scale and move up from there. In the end, those who are in economic power, like those who are in social power, will give up what they have willingly, or they will leave the system (refuse to play the new game).

So here's the thing: that minority at the top control the lives of those in the majority rather completely: These folks have no motivation to leave the system, and they can make life impossible for those who would work to upset the applecart that keeps them on top of the heap (excuse the mixed metaphors). The majority simply cannot afford to resist that power: they've got mouths to feed and a need to keep warm. When you're hungry, you simply cannot "refuse to play."

Now I do want to encourage you to work out how this more egalitarian society would work, but I just have to say that the *really* interesting (and really *hard*) part of this puzzle is figuring out how you get there from here.

Why do you think all those people vote for Republicans who enact laws that *only* benefit that top 20%? See Trickle-down economics....

A rich dude and his money are hard to part,
Buffy

[TheBigDog]

The point of the system is decreased corruption, and increased efficiency. The mechanism by which this is obtained is by low level buy into the system, so that everyone feels and is a owner in the system.

Unfortunately you would have the exact opposite effect.

Everyone would be beholden to the committee for things that they want, thus the committee representatives become the new power base. You have not eliminated corruption, you have replaced qualified players (those who built wealth on merit of the market) with unqualified elected officials who by their nature play a game of popularity, not a game of efficiency.

Lets talk about a corporation with 2000 employees. The top officer in the company is making $1,000,000/year. 10 employees make $250,000 or more. 200 make $100,000 or more. 1500 employees make less than $60,000/year. Around 300 are in the $60,000 to $100,000 range. The top guy gets paid the most because his decisions impact the most people. If one of the guys in the under 60,000 range makes a bad decision they may cause a few thousand dollars in damage to sales or quality, and while this is not good for a company, it is correctable. If the top guy makes a poor decision it could put all 2000 people out of work. The pay is scaled not on the capability of each person, but on their value and responsibility to the organization.

What you are suggesting is that basic freedoms that we have today, such as ownership and profit and freedom to spend and invest would be taken away, because it is selfish of successful people to flaunt it in front of the unsuccessful. Or that money spent on luxury is better spent on charity.

Your idealistic fantasy is nothing but an evil act in the guise of "fairness". I would fight to the death before I ever let this happen. I will not be the slave of a government committee, no matter what altruism they represent.

Bill

[InfiniteNow]

One cannot erase natural selection with a change in economics. The top hunter of the pack benefits by sharing it's kill by of it's own volition, and the pack will always have a hierarchy. [/metaphorically supporting TBDs point above]

[TheBigDog]

Coming back to make a second point KAC...

Originally Posted by TBD

I would fight to the death before I ever let this happen.

Don't take this point lightly. What you are suggesting would require the slaughter, imprisonment or enslavement of those who already own the things you would be taking away. And they would not go easily. It is easy when you have nothing to fantasize about the world being handed to you.

Bill

[CraigD]

If I may engage in a fit of opinionated, wild speculation…

Originally Posted by Boerseun

… how to get the rich to give up their wealth? The Russians managed it, through revolution; involving violence and death and blood and gore and general destruction.

You don’t get the rich to give up their wealth. You make it irrelevant by making no resource scarce. If there is not practical difference between the wealthy and the poor in terms of their access to resources – food, shelter, leisure, and novelty – there is effectively no basis for the poverty-wealth continuum.

How do you make this happen? Technological silver bullets. Flood the planet with so many compact water purification devices that its practically impossible for any human being to be without one. Similarly with solar powered CHON food synthesizers, automatic material fabricators, all of the worlds information and media, including programs of guided education in billions of self-contained viewing devices. Uncountable totally automated space and theater air defense weapon systems, eliminating the capacity for wealthy nations to project their will through military superiority.

As an advance search on “abundance scarcity” and my username, I’ve pursued this rant in various threads. One could call it my “political belief system”. Though not a widely discussed or understood position, it’s far from a fringe one.

[Buffy]

Sure, but microeconomics will tell you that reaching saturation of a commodity resulting in a completely inelastic demand curve is rare over the long-term. Whether through waste or new applications, demand for anything that's useful is monotonically increasing until a substitute occurs which simply replaces it with yet another monotonically increasing demand.

As I've always said, I can make anyone's new superfast processor look slow!

Moreover, while resources are still scarce, only the producers have the *ability* to produce these economic cornucopias, and they have *tremendous* disincentive to do so. Even if one producer does, he can be swamped or driven out of business by competitors in the market for the commodity.

I'll see your yield and raise demand 1000,
Buffy

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by CraigD

Though not a widely discussed or understood position, it’s far from a fringe one.

Here are three that always stood out to me:

http://hypography.com/forums/social-...html#post58001

http://hypography.com/forums/social-...html#post80978

http://hypography.com/forums/social-...html#post82169

[KickAssClown]

Mood: ,

BD, and InfiniteNow, I would encourage you to look critically at your broad sweeping statements.

I would ask that you examine them to see if they are objective, and if they are properly self-critical (not hypocritical that is) and logically rigorous.

I would personally categorize your objections under "Reactionary".

Originally Posted by TheBigDog

What you are suggesting is that basic freedoms that we have today, such as ownership and profit and freedom to spend and invest would be taken away, because it is selfish of successful people to flaunt it in front of the unsuccessful. Or that money spent on luxury is better spent on charity.

This is straw man at it's finest, BD. I would expect better of you.

We have freedoms and all that because we allow one another to have those freedoms, we all at some level buy into the game. We agree to the rules of the society, and if we don't then we don't last long, do we?

A murder, rapist, or theif can ignore the laws that we have collectively made, but in the end they will be selected out of the system by the system. They won't be allowed to play.

Now, Buffy, to address your bit about can't refuse to play. That is simply not true. Everyone has the capability to refuse to play The Game or any other game. As to volition? I doubt that most would have the volition without the choices being made completely clear to them. Which is what I intend to do with such a system. Make the choices completely clear to your average person.

Originally Posted by Buffy

that minority at the top control the lives of those in the majority rather completely

As I am sure you can see the problem is that the minority only controls those that allow themselves to be controlled. I can assure you that No minority entity controls my actions, besides myself. They may have influence on my desisive capabilities, making it hard for me to make one play or another, but they do not have executive control.

At any point I may decide to "leave the game". Whether for good or bad consequences, and there is nothing that can be said or done to stop me.

Co-operation can not be stolen. It must be given. This would seem to be, to me at the least the point of Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent. That in a democratically driven system, IE the American system, the will to power arises from the influence and manufacturing of consent.

Anyone who thinks they have freedom to do what they will without consequence, to use their resources as they please, in whatever way they want. Is sorely mistaken. You exist freely because it is by common contract (IE the Constitution) that you exist free.

It is this interdependence that we subsist on, and it is this interdependence that I am interested in building a society around.

It's not an elimination of personal property. Like I said, It's fine for people to own reasonable things. Personal possessions. It is not fine for a person to own sizable percentages of a given city or state.

Now as for the appeal to committee thing? Only for things that one needs at a higher level, and as I have said the higher levels are composed of all of the lower levels. Each representatives's intended, implicit and explicit purpose in the system is to represent the interests of those whom they represent.

As shareholders, outside agents may vote on and be appealed too, as well as higher levels still.

These levels are not islands unto themselves. They do not opperate autonomously. That is the point of it. Recognition of the fact of necessary co-operative interdependence.

Of course the system needs refinement, and all eventualities have not been worked out, but over the course of 10 years they could be worked out.

In short, simply saying it can't work isn't useful. If you have a critism of it, then address that critism, critically, and constructively. Identify what is wrong with it and purpose something that might make it right.

One must admit that the system has at least some practical merit.

Also, it's free association. One doesn't have to play this game. However if your not playing the game, you don't get any of the benefits. So take your fight and private property and get the hell off our land.

[pgrmdave]

KAC, it seems to me that your proposal would work only if everybody in the system wanted it to work, much like communism. I would rather be poor (not starving, but poor) in a capitalist society, where I could work hard and become wealthy, then be average in a society where I could never better my station by much. However, I do agree with you that some people make too much, I think we merely disagree on the amount. I don't think it's unreasonable for people to earn millions each year, up to somewhere in the vicinity of $10 - $15 million each year. I think that beyond that, there should be 100% taxes - everything you earn past that will simply be taken by the government. No limit on how much you can accumulate. The estate tax should be raised, to eliminate the inheritance of vast, unearned wealth, possibly somewhere in the vicinity of 100% above $1 million per dependant. There should still be the ability to be rich, just not Bill Gates rich.

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by KickAssClown

Now, Buffy, to address your bit about can't refuse to play. That is simply not true. Everyone has the capability to refuse to play The Game or any other game.

You're missing my point! No, there are no *laws* to prevent them, its the issue of motivation which you continue to blithely dismiss as obvious.

Originally Posted by KickAssClown

As to volition? I doubt that most would have the volition without the choices being made completely clear to them. Which is what I intend to do with such a system. Make the choices completely clear to your average person.

No doubt Mr. Cheney, they will greet you as a liberator.

Here's the difficulty: Unless somehow you could get everyone to magically decide to support this all on the same day, choosing to support this by "refusing to play the game" involves seeing some huge benefit at the end for possibly *years* of no income and no shelter in order to support the cause. If you're going to have any hope of this idea working, you have to explain this process.

Similarly, the have-nots *might* be able to see the long-term benefit and ultimately support it, but among the haves, as BigDog so forcefully put it, you will have to pry it from their cold dead hands. And surprisingly large numbers of people out there consider themselves to be "upper-class" or want to be even if they are not. Since these people have resources and access to *buying votes* even if they agreed to a "fair election" on the issue (which I doubt!), its unlikely to win unless something is done *by force* to remove these levers of power.

You can call me a cynic, but you can't just dismiss these issues as minor implementation problems.

Originally Posted by KickAssClown

As I am sure you can see the problem is that the minority only controls those that allow themselves to be controlled. I can assure you that No minority entity controls my actions, besides myself. They may have influence on my desisive capabilities, making it hard for me to make one play or another, but they do not have executive control.

So if everyone just thought like you do, it would work! Cool! That's the same traps the neocons fall into. They make this jump from what they think to insisting its the *only* rational conclusion that *anyone* can justify! More investigation might indicate that the problems I'm describing are major and need to be addressed in *realistic* terms.

Originally Posted by KickAssClown

In short, simply saying it can't work isn't useful. If you have a critism of it, then address that critism, critically, and constructively. Identify what is wrong with it and purpose something that might make it right.

I've been happy to! If you don't believe these criticisms are valid, please let me know why you think so!

Originally Posted by KickAssClown

One must admit that the system has at least some practical merit.

So does "peace on earth and goodwill towards your fellow man." Mistaking criticisms of you plan as a criticism of your goal would be a false conclusion. Your plan even sounds (kinda) good (the "kinda" coming from your dismissal of the human reaction to limited motivations, yes, you're allowing for unequal pay, but what motivates those at the top? What about "accidental millionaires?" Do you confiscate their "unfair gains?" lots to think about here). The problem is really just that the *implementation* of it may be completely impractical unless you figure out how to deal with the issues associated with the transition.

Originally Posted by KickAssClown

Also, it's free association. One doesn't have to play this game. However if your not playing the game, you don't get any of the benefits. So take your fight and private property and get the hell off our land.

You might want to compare this to BD's tirade above! Its the shoe now on the other foot! You sure you don't know what we're talking about here?

Practical Cat,
Buffy