Re: No revolution will be needed to...

On 7/7/2003 at 2:10 PM Alan Spector wrote:
>They just "might" consider using
>force to prevent that evolution......as they did in Indonesia, Chile and a
>hundred other places.
>
>Just a thought:

Maybe our guardians will be able to prevent significant reform for a while.  If 
so they are going to 
hurt themselves as much as the little guys.  They wouldn't suppress reform if 
they knew that 
they are going to be worse off for their efforts. 

Our gang of guardians believe in their own BS propaganda about growth, the 
magic market, 
infinite resources/substitution, and how they escaped being bungled and 
botched.  Their 
mirror is broken, and their brains are on vacation. Wealth is more easily 
inherited that brains 
when upper class (in)breeding goes for beauty and strength.   

The only hope for them and us is to inform them about the problems they are 
causing and 
the solutions that are just waiting under their perfumed noses. They need to 
pull their heads 
out of their macho ...

>What I ask is:  But really, does capitalism work any better.......would a 
>system
>that institutionalizes cheating and violence somehow be able to work?

Capitalism doesn't necessarily have cheating and violence anymore that 
communism must 
have Joe Stalin.  Capitalism may be based on greed, but it also used to have 
laws.  No system can 
function well without some legal and moral limits on selfishness. The strong 
tendency for people to be 
greedy seems to be human nature, but for normal people greed just an adaptation 
to the the 
insecurity of wage dependence and the threat of poverty needlessly imposed on 
the masses by 
our guardians who stupidly still believe we have a labor shortage.  (while they 
create labor surplus)

Without reform the guardians will drop the ball.  It will hurt us all, and a 
few of them know it.  How 
does anyone run the system better?  How could they run it differently?  No one 
has a plan for today's 
problems.  Will we ever have influence or hope if we are just against what our 
foolish guardians are doing 
without any positive vision for an alternative?  Are the workers going to be 
ready to rule?  Will anyone be 
ready? I doubt it if we don't make some progress in these discussions.

The hundred places you mentioned above had revolution (elected or not) and met 
strong opposition.  
That's why I am proposing reform using elements that are in place now, with a 
guiding vision to make 
them work for people instead of folly.   Making some different connections can 
lead to different results.

Barry









Good engineering uses evolution.  Consider the Japanese car designs that are 
improved, not replaced, when better designs are available.  Here's an outline 
of goals and policies that I advocate.  We have the components of a successful 
economy, as I define it below, already in place.  Small changes can make a big 
difference.

In my humble opinion we want our economy to provide sustainability, an 
abundance of goods and services, economic security for everyone, and leisure. 
These goals are synergistic and are hard to separate or rank.

Various economic arrangements could provide those wants, and the economic 
designers, who ever they are, must choose between those alternative 
arrangements.  That is the hardest part of the design process.

The easy part is knowing the things that can not work.  To be sustainable an 
economy must not need growth in scale, because any rate of growth in scale will 
finally make any economy un-sustainable.  All the sustainable alternative 
economies will not need to grow in scale.

Also, leisure will require the acceptance of automation into every possible 
part of the economy.  Economic arrangements that don't use technology can't 
meet the want for leisure. All the alternative economies will use technology, 
and they will not need to grow in scale.

Economic security requires some arrangement to provide basic food and shelter 
to everyone without qualification.  With a little bad luck anyone can end-up 
needing help, and automation will finally cause widespread unemployment. Pure 
market capitalism, private charity, and "opportunity" can not provide economic 
security.  Some form of transfer payments (welfare or guaranteed income) will 
be part of any economic arrangement that provides economic security.  All the 
alternative economies will use technology, they will not need to grow in scale, 
and they will care for the poor.

Caring for the poor in an economy that values leisure will not focus on making 
jobs for them.  Wage dependence leads to the need to make jobs, the need to 
compensate for automation, and the need for growth in scale. Unearned income is 
basic to capitalism, but it's not democratic capitalism when most people are 
dependant on wages.  A guaranteed income could be adjusted to stabilize wages 
in an economy that doesn't need its full productive capacity. 

The need for growth and waste of our consumer economy will finally make 
providing an abundance of goods and services impossible.  When we make jobs and 
tolerate waste to be busy, or to avoid the need to provide welfare, we are in 
denial about the power of today's automation to replace human labor, and where 
we going.  
The waste of the consumer economy will not provide abundance, security, or 
leisure; not for long.

The wish to seek and hold power leads to the establishment of  a system which 
features the insecurity of wage dependence and the threat of poverty. If it 
weren't for politics even today's economic arrangements could work, for a 
while. We could stimulate demand so effectively that our wants for abundance 
and security, at least for workers, could be meet.  That's why our want for 
sustainability is important. It's not enough to nurture the market, to end 
corruptions, to implement the most advanced policies in pursuit of 
unsustainable levels of  hyper-activity.  The short-term fix of more 
consumption is  not a long-term fix, but any long-term fix applies now.  For 
sustainability the long-term fix is to cut resource consumption, not to 
increase it.

When we combine the known requirements of our engineered economy we get 
something that would seem unworkable without consideration of additional 
details.  For example, an economy that doesn't grow requires a stable 
population, and an economy that is sustainable avoids waste.  So, if we make 
all products long lasting many goods can be provided by inheritance.  
Long-lasting houses combined with population stability will provide houses 
without much labor, without economic growth,  without excessive resource 
consumption, and without a need for large income.   Security, abundance and 
leisure are all supported by such arrangements.  

Last time I checked no revolution will be needed to institute inheritance, or 
family planning, or automation, or even transfer payments.  We already have 
those things in our society.  It may take a revolution to get the media to 
explain how those existing social features can make the goals of 
sustainability, an abundance of goods and services, economic security for 
everyone, and leisure a reality.  If  we could agree we could just use the 
internet and forget the corporate media.

Barry Brooks