The Political Thread

[Smith]

Sharky,you have some good points;but dont you think the post-governmant transitional period would be very painfull?

[The Legendary Shark]

IP, those biases have always been with us as long as there's been media - even as long as there's been word of mouth - and they only work for so long anyway before the truth comes out. In these here modern times the truth tends to come out quicker because the decent "Watchdog" type countermeasures are also evolving with digital speed.

Law, at heart, is really simple - cause loss, harm or damage to nobody, honour your lawful contracts, pay your lawful bills and be honest in your dealings. That's it. Everyone can understand that and know when they've done wrong or been wronged. It's only when legislative law masquerades as common or natural law that lawyers are required to make sense of it all. There was a saying in the "wild west" that if one lawyer moved into town he'd starve but if two moved in they'd make half a fortune apiece. Removing the backing of violence from legislative law and relegating it to its proper position, that of advisory material, will simplify the law immensely. The primacy of common or natural law will allow questions like was loss, harm or damage caused, was the lawful contract honoured or the lawful bill paid and were the dealings honest? These questions are much easier to address than was The Multivarious Obscurity in Mist Act, Paragraph 12, Section C, Subsection 9a properly adhered to under GNOB and TYTTI guidelines?

There was a time when only the feeble-minded needed lawyers, we should strive to return to that time.

I don't know the answer to your question about other options if you disagree with a court's decision. That's something society will have to ponder and evolve. The court system we have now struggles with that answer. Look at the latest "fine for taking kids out of school" saga. The first local court found in favour of the parent, the next court up found in favour of the parent but the "High Court" found in favour of the government. Democratically, that's a two to one win in favour of the parent but the government only accepts the verdict it agrees with. This is indeed a knotty problem but not an insurmountable one. Just because I don't know the answer either doesn't mean that divorcing courts from government and relegating legislation to an advisory capacity is a bad idea.

The bad car rental experience will still happen, I suppose, but what was the experience? Was the car not as promised (breach of contract), did it break down (causing loss), was it unsafe (causing harm or damage)? Deciding these things in court might be a ballache but is an option, as is the formation of a voluntary "Federation of Master Vehicle Renters" which promises to sort out such things for its members and doesn't allow poor businesses to join, thus offering some level of confidence and protection to the customer.

Smith, yes. If the transition was to implemented overnight it would be especially painful and frightening. Just look at the pain and fear Brexit is causing, and that's just over leaving a protectionist club. These changes should be completed in stages, beginning with a national conversation. The first practical step should be the return of the money creation and control system to public hands. This will probably be the hardest step as the trillionaires will pour considerable resources into defending their monopoly. Once this is done, however, the government will find itself beholden exclusively to the people and able to fund public services and institutions relatively easily and for a fraction of the cost. To be honest, that would do for me in my lifetime but the rest should definitely follow for the benefit of future generations.

Our generation will have the hardest time not only adjusting to a new paradigm but even believing it possible. All our lives we've been led to believe that human beings are horrid and violent things with no regard for each other or the planet and that only government keeps us from smearing ourselves in shit and bashing each others' heads in, even though the reverse is true. 

I'd love to walk straight into a Star Trek economy immediately after the next election but, as somebody said earlier, baby steps.

[Suede1971]

So, what you are proposing then is some form of Anarcho-Capitalism.

[Professor Bear]

I think he's proposing some sort of anarcho-syndicalist commune where everyone takes it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.

[JPMaybe]

No way do syndicalists want to preserve capital and private property

[IndigoPrime]

IP, those biases have always been with us as long as there's been media - even as long as there's been word of mouth - and they only work for so long anyway before the truth comes out.

But that's just not the case. You say that digital will solve issues of people knowing who to choose for service X, but that implies:

1. People have enough time to do the research
2. People have enough knowledge to understand the content they find
3. There are no inherent biases in the system regarding the content they are able to find

In #3, you have the issue that certain companies will have an active interest in people not being able to find unbiased content, and that ownership over some systems may tend towards monopoly or duopoly. I don't doubt that massive disasters sometimes find their way into the mainstream, but smaller systematic issues are less likely to break through and stay there. And, as I said, while that's one thing to have to deal with when, say, hiring a car or buying online, it's not when it comes to healthcare. (You see this in the USA – their system is closer to what you describe, and it's basically a minefield.)


As for courts, the system needs to at the very least work nationally, or you have a decision in Devon holding no water in Cornwall (or perhaps 'networks' of courts would hold sway in certain areas but not others). The tiered system admittedly has problems when it comes to appeals, but lobbing this all into an anarchist stew would rapidly become mind-bogglingly complicated. Lawyers, I suspect, would emerge winners though.

Smith, yes. If the transition was to implemented overnight it would be especially painful and frightening. Just look at the pain and fear Brexit is causing, and that's just over leaving a protectionist club.

The fear here is probably more down to: 3.5 million people being left in limbo; the economy predicted to take a nosedive of the likes never seen in modern history; basically nothing being done to retain the UK's place in key international projects; every nation we were supposed to be getting a great deal with stating that actually the much larger EU is a priority over the UK (this list now including the USA).

For what it's worth, I do agree with some of the basic broad sweeps you advocate, such as the notion of more local control. But pure pragmatism suggests individuals and even groups often don't have the capabilities to 'replace' central government on a great many issues.

[TordelBack]

I think he's proposing some sort of anarcho-syndicalist commune where everyone takes it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.

Or is it closer to demarchy or even sortition?  Which I think we discussed before, but am too lazy to search for it, which probably hints at what level of interest I'd take in negotiating complex service supply deals for my friends and neighbours...

[M.I.K.]

There was a time when only the feeble-minded needed lawyers

When?

[sheridan]

It's not idealistic to think companies would suddenly pay decent wages if government intervention ceased, it's basic Austrian economics.

The key here would be to look at what companies do now – how many go beyond the absolute minimum they have to? John Lewis is one, given that it's a co-op and therefore the bulk of employees share in the success of the company in real percentage terms (versus getting a 50 quid 'Christmas bonus' or whatever, when your company makes a ton of cash). But that system is very rare.

Not technically a co-operative, but close enough (don't ask me what the difference is but it's there).

All employees (Partners) share the bonus, which is the same percentage for everybody, from the lowest-paid shop assistant to the chairman (not CEO) of the company.  This year's Partnership Bonus was 6%.  A quick google of competitors (such as Sainsbury and M&S) suggest that their equivalent bosses get bonuses of between 100% and 700% - on top of pay rises and share options they seem to award themselves, even in the same weeks as cutting christmas bonuses to their retail assistants...

Now and again other companies have looked at the JLP to find out why partners seem more motivated than in other companies.  They quickly lose interest when they realise they'd have to give away their companies in Trust to their employees to copy the same business model.

[Modern Panther]

But since we're not living in a spontaneously organised, post-scarcity (but definitely not utopian) future there are important questions to answer...like will Muslim women be allowed to work as beekeepers once Doctor Paul Nuttall is prime minister?

[The Legendary Shark]

You'll have to ask the hive mind about that one...

[The Legendary Shark]

You say that digital will solve issues of people knowing who to choose for service X, but that implies:

1. People have enough time to do the research
2. People have enough knowledge to understand the content they find
3. There are no inherent biases in the system regarding the content they are able to find

In #3, you have the issue that certain companies will have an active interest in people not being able to find unbiased content, and that ownership over some systems may tend towards monopoly or duopoly. I don't doubt that massive disasters sometimes find their way into the mainstream, but smaller systematic issues are less likely to break through and stay there. And, as I said, while that's one thing to have to deal with when, say, hiring a car or buying online, it's not when it comes to healthcare. (You see this in the USA – their system is closer to what you describe, and it's basically a minefield.)


As for courts, the system needs to at the very least work nationally, or you have a decision in Devon holding no water in Cornwall (or perhaps 'networks' of courts would hold sway in certain areas but not others). The tiered system admittedly has problems when it comes to appeals, but lobbing this all into an anarchist stew would rapidly become mind-bogglingly complicated. Lawyers, I suspect, would emerge winners though.

I don't think the solutions are as insurmountable as you fear, nor do I think people can't learn to work with a new system. People are perfectly capable of choosing such potentially lethal objects as cars, for example, honing their choices through personal knowledge and experience, trusted sources like reputable review websites and consumer programmes, knowledgeable friends and acquaintances, Google searches, industry literature and even adverts. The same goes for just about every service or good.

And I think truth does come out more quickly in these days of internet communication. Compare the length of time it took for lead in petrol to be even acknowledged publicly as a problem with the length of time it took for BMW's dodgy emissions fudging (I think it was BMW) to come to light. The lead in petrol thing was easier to cover up, in one sense, because of the sheer number and wealth of the parties with interests in keeping it quiet, from redesigns and refittings of petrol refineries to engine manufacturers to petrol station tank and pump alterations. All that money and clout thrown in to covering up, debunking or dismissing the lead thing delayed the truth coming out for a long time, despite the sheer number of people who knew about it. The BMW emissions thing should have been much easier to cover up - just one company with a limited number of people in the know over one relatively small issue, yet it came to light quite quickly.

But.

Once again we have fallen into the Appeal to Consequences trap - talking about the problems with solutions to the root problem, which is the inherant coercive and violent nature of historical and current government and government systems.

Without wanting to appear insulting - nothing could be further from my mind - I simply do not understand your position.

On the one hand, you seem to advocate government using violence and coercion in order to maintain some things, like hospitals (which seem to be on the decline anyway) and roads because, I guess, you think people are too selfish and short-sighted to support these good things without the ultimate threat of being put in a cage while, on the other hand, you are vehemently opposed to what you and your family might be coerced into doing, again with the ultimate threat of being put into a cage or ejected from the country, should this Brexit thing go badly.

I don't understand how you can advocate violence and coercion for one thing and be utterly opposed to it for another - especially when the violent coercion comes from the same body of people who happened to win popularity contests.

You are happy to pay taxes for hospitals - as I think most of us are - yet you don't believe people would pay if they didn't have to. I think there are a few people who wouldn't pay if they didn't have to but that most would, and would experience a sense of accomplishment and/or moral satisfaction from doing so. Forget about everyone else, if taxation was voluntary, would you pay? I can tell you that I certainly would. I, and I suspect this is true of the vast majority of people, would much rather be asked to do something (by people with no more rights and responsibilities than me) than told to do the same thing under threat of violence if I can't or won't do it.

The initiation of violence and coercion are wrong in every case, not just in some cases.

Tordels, we've talked about solutions to voluntary taxation before and came up with the solution of brokers - you fill out a form indicating the infrastructure and services you're willing to support (which some brokers might break down into popular packages) and they do all the work. If you wanted to keep HMRC, then they could offer the same service either directly or through an employer or bank. It would not be a prohibitively complex process - the point being that you're being asked to support the things you believe in and not being made to support the things you don't, such as the forcible relocation of innocent human beings. It gives you the power to do what you see as good instead of ceding that power to an individual person who might be lying to get into power, bribed to change his mind once in power or doesn't understand what he's doing or respect what you want.

M.I.K., in the Athenian City States every man was expected to know and understand the basic law and be capable of using it properly. Hiring lawyers was not only seen as an admission of stupidity but actually illegal. It was much later when one of the Roman emperors (I forget which one) legalised the practice of hiring a lawyer. As legislative law became more and more complex, and governments realised that they could not only write legislation and present it as equal to or above common or natural law, rule through confusion (as it were) facilitated the rise and gradual acceptance of lawyering as a profession, which was allowed by governments both to give the illusion of fairness and to examine their own legislation for loopholes. A few losses in court, for a government, can be worth the fines in order to highlight and subsequently plug the gaps.

[IndigoPrime]

People are perfectly capable of choosing such potentially lethal objects as cars, for example, honing their choices through personal knowledge and experience, trusted sources like reputable review websites and consumer programmes, knowledgeable friends and acquaintances, Google searches, industry literature and even adverts. The same goes for just about every service or good

Thing is, people often make shitty decisions, despite having the evidence. Many just don't have the time. And going beyond consumer goods, it gets very complex when you're talking about, say, healthcare. In the US, making the wrong choice can very easily bankrupt you. Hell, even making what looks like the right choice can, given the many loopholes (such as you ending up being operated on by a doctor outside of your coverage). There are similar issues when it comes to things like the courts. Fragmenting services is just not beneficial. (Elsewhere, there are pragmatic concerns. With water, trains, etc., the UK would benefit from a centralised single service, in a mixed economy. Instead, these things are fragmented, adding complexity and lowering buying power for the relevant entities.)

And I think truth does come out more quickly in these days of internet communication.

Sometimes it does, yes. But also so does noise. And even messes fade into obscurity pretty rapidly.

On the one hand, you seem to advocate government using violence and coercion in order to maintain some things, like hospitals (which seem to be on the decline anyway) and roads because, I guess, you think people are too selfish and short-sighted to support these good things without the ultimate threat of being put in a cage while, on the other hand, you are vehemently opposed to what you and your family might be coerced into doing, again with the ultimate threat of being put into a cage or ejected from the country, should this Brexit thing go badly.

I'm not against government. I'm against this government. And as I've said here in the past, I don't see a world in which people would fund all of the things they say they would. Also, in not having a massive pool of money and its buying power, things become more expensive. It's one thing for, say, BT to scoot about upgrading broadband. Now find out how much it'd cost to get the same thing to happen just on your street from a third party.

You are happy to pay taxes for hospitals - as I think most of us are - yet you don't believe people would pay if they didn't have to. I think there are a few people who wouldn't pay if they didn't have to but that most would, and would experience a sense of accomplishment and/or moral satisfaction from doing so.

There's no evidence for that. What would more likely happen: people will pay for these things when they need them themselves, or for their families. See also schooling. The sheer number of people I see bellyaching about their taxes paying for schools when they themselves don't have kids... So what you end up with is a society that pays into things at the precise moment when they need them. Without that safety net, you end up with truly colossal costs for specific services – and a massive underclass for the people who cannot afford them.

[The Legendary Shark]

If a single person makes a poor decision, the damage is limited. If a government makes a poor decision, the damage is generally widespread and potentially catastrophic. People can be educated and helped to make better decisions, governments think they know best.

There is nothing to stop centralised or coherent services continuing in removing the power to initiate coercion and violence from government.

How can you be against this government when it supposedly provides hospitals, roads, police, courts, H&S, schools, clean water, clean food, farming, fire brigades, paramedics, doctors, nurses, dentists, general practices, benefits, soldiers, weapons, energy, telecommunications infrastructure, national parks, bird sanctuaries, sea defences, climate change mitigation initiatives, scientific research, arts funding, sports funding, anti-litter campaigns, the hilarity of PMQs and everything else? Or are you just against the way this current batch of popularity contest winners are doing jobs you think they have every right to undertake in any way they see fit anyway? It makes no sense to me, sorry. How can you elect and support a person to make decisions on your behalf, because you can't, for whatever reason, make those decisions yourself and then be upset when the decisions this person makes aren't the ones you'd have made? Then, when given the opportunity to think about a system which allows you to make decisions for yourself, refuse and continue to place that power in the hands of others who might allow you to live your life the way you want? And even if you do luck out and get a group of people who do everything you want doing in the way you want it done, the people who disagree with you can kick them out in the next popularity contest and you could end up back at Square One or worse. I honestly don't understand why so many people think this "I give you the right to beat me but please don't beat me" system is so brilliant and doesn't need changing.

Then there's the tax thing. As I've said before, many times, returning the right to create and control the money supply to public hands would go a very long way indeed to paying for all the things our society needs, even those things currently funded by voluntary donations like cancer research and air ambulances which, according to what you seem to believe, are only supported by people who have cancer or are bleeding to death in a remote field somewhere.

In this model, voluntary taxation is a luxury, not a necessity. The icing on the cake, the cherry on top. The flour, eggs, butter, oven and baker are already paid for but you might want to throw a few bob at your local school so it can have extra things; things it doesn't need but would be nice to have. And if you don't want to do that then that's fine too, the place isn't going to fall down because you'd rather save up for a holiday or a new car.

[JPMaybe]

Holy shit. Yes, I too think social money creation would work without expropriation of private wealth and the absence of a state. Private capital wouldn't then *be* effectively a state (without even the pretense of representation) or anything. State oppression is thethe only oppression that exists.

Also, wage labour and capital accumulation is Good, and my child's education quality being utterly dependent on the munificence of private donors is also Good.

Also, everybody wants to have to pull out a slide-rule and spreadsheet to get their bins collected. Everybody else is as monomaniacally obsessed with contracts and (capital-L) Law as I am. This isn't a living nightmare where everyone's a cash obsessed, petit-bourgeois monad.