11-05-04
Egalitarian America
The more
complex societies get and the more complex the
networks of interdependence within and beyond community and
national borders get, the more people are forced in their own interests
to find non-zero-sum solutions. That is, win-win
solutions instead of win-lose solutions.... Because we find as our
interdependence increases that, on the whole, we do better
when other people do better as well - so we have to find ways that we
can all win, we have to accommodate each other -
Bill Clinton, Wired interview,
December 2000.
SUMMARY [details]
We're in a Period of Dark in America. The nation is lost in
misinformation, extremism
and denial. Now is the time to bring back the light of reason, truth
and
justice. Egalitarian America is a progressive reality of structure,
policy
and action. It accepts input from all participants and integrates that
which fits the progressive criteria. These criteria should evoke
universal freedom. Universal freedom requires respect for the
freedom of each. We may consider universal
freedom a collective resource, a pool of energy we all add to and draw
from. We may consider universal freedom like the leaves of a giant tree
that reaches
to the ends of the earth. The leaves are nodes of freedom that we can
give and take and the branches are the laws we stand by. Truth and
justice
flow through it.
Egalitarian America is built on the Principle of Universality,
Kant's Categorical Imperative, Karma, the Golden Rule, Do unto others as you would have them do
unto you. Parents will ensure that children practice this rule
without effort, teaching them that what goes around comes around.
The children will
understand how groups, institutions and states
must practice this rule. The children will also be exposed to
other
cultures and learn how to co-exist with different belief systems
without fear or negativity and learn how to apply the golden rule in
these situations. They will learn how to channel their aggressive
energy without violating the freedom of others. They will learn how to
be patient but firm with those who do not want to participate in
Egalitarian America, but honest and open to allow trust to build.
Egalitarian America must repair the problems now polarizing the
nation and frightening the rest of the world. To this end, EA
must be
built proactively toward goals, not reactively against opponents.
All citizens participate by first mastering a few skills. First is to
learn how to approach a seemingly insurmountable task with
courage, conquering fear.
Other human obstacles to be conquered- the failure to
persevere, and the failure to be motivated when one's vision is found
to
diverge somewhat for the vision of others. This indicates the need to
engage further, not disengage.
Egalitarian America accepts the good and rejects the bad from all.
There's nothing wrong with an egalitarian cowboy. Even bands of rebels
determined to destroy EA are tolerated because defense
is an integral component of successful civilizations. Violent
challenges will be rare and weak because the system is egalitarian, not
oppressive. It offers the challenger no legitimate mandates.
Egalitarian America draws on all sources, including capitalism, in
moderation. One of the cause/effects of the Period of Dark is that
capitalism is taken to an extreme to where the negative overshadows the
positive. The economic philosophy of EA
recognizes social values, such as sense of community, security and
trust, as legitimate alongside purely economic factors. Capitalists
will become an interest group which must present its positives and help
identify its negatives in good faith. Powerful entities will be
subservient to the people. This is a great balancing act, but great
resources will be summoned to manage it. This will be a prestigious
occupation for many. The establishment bears the burden of
proof and bears accountability to the people. But the people will have
respect for those who succeed economically. Their behavior will justify
the respect. Remember, freedom for all.
Examples of sources to be drawn from include the Amish. What is the
intersection of the Amish culture and the ideal Egalitarian America?
The answers to questions like this require a consensus, but the
movement must adhere to guiding principles at the same time. You must
strive to master the complexity of the universal freedom we must
develop and utilize. Which aspects of the Amish lifestyle should be
adopted in Egalitarian America? We must preserve separation of church
and state, of course. Recent events illustrate it, and it's enshrined
in
the U.S. Constitution. The Amish reject technological advancement
outright. We want to select technology based on its positive/negative
balance. We will allow moderation, and disallow extremes. We will
consider the environment and the peoples' health. We have something to
learn from all cultures including the Amish. But we also have societies
around the world o draw from, already practicing various levels of
moderation in
industrial policy. Active analysis of available options
with open minds is necessary. We unfortunately know the result when
closed minds reign.
Another community we will draw from is the Open Source software
community. The philosophy applied therein drove the 1990s economic
boom. It can be applied almost universally in the information and
concept realm. It will become necessary
for a large number of our people to learn about this system and how to
extend it to non-technical realms. This is already being done -
Wikipedia is an open encyclopedia online that anyone can contribute to.
Open Source draws on our cooperative energy, currently shunned,
suppressed, wickedly. Open Source software is a reaction to
extreme U.S. intellectual property policy. Had the government upheld
the reasonable policy articulated in the U.S. Constitution's copyright
clause, we'd have merit enterprise in the software industry today, with
all
commoditized software "open sourced". As always we are taking the best
of both - we provide a modest carrot with limited time copyright,
rewarding true innovation, and we release property to the public when
private control is no longer a public benefit.
In our economic system we want merit enterprise instead of free
enterprise. Free enterprise allow producers to corner markets. Merit
enterprise disallows all shenanigans - the product is evaluated by the
informed consumer and the government ensures that the producer's fate
is determined by the consumer's choice, instead of the other way
around. Egalitarian America will see to it that the consumer gets best
value. The prosperity will far surpass that limited by the Dark
Period's wacko-capitalism. This prosperity will be distributed far and
wide, by necessity. Local diverse clean craftsman industries (1) will be
maintained. This reduces the various destructions of big business -
social, environmental, economic. This distribution is required for
functional democracy.
Egalitarian America will begin in real communities dispersed around the
country. They will form a public interest lobby in Washington, working
within the system, but also working to take over the system. Everything
is open - no secrets. These communities will develop and implement on
the grass roots level the policies that will eventually become the law
of the land. These communities already exist
in many places. Part of the challenge is to motivate them to unify.
The oppressors are helping us to do this.
A real debate will take place over social liberalism and conservatism.
Egalitarian America will allow both to thrive but will know the
negative fallout from each and deal with it. Currently, each side
denies any negative fallout, and stonewalls the issue. There will be
little stonewalling in Egalitarian America. The social conservatives
don't trust the liberals. In Egalitarian America the liberals will
correct this. The social liberals think the conservatives are
hypocrites. In Egalitarian America the conservatives will correct this.
Both sides will work hard to acknowledge their shared values. The
polarization will be reduced to insignificant. Another boulder out of
our path.
In Egalitarian America the special interests will be removed from
governance (2). Public enterprises will
compete with private enterprises to determine which deliver best value.
Cronyism will be removed from government with strict laws. The public
interest will be the dominant interest in Egalitarian America and the
majority will get its way, not at the expense of the minority. Each
year, the taxpayer will select on his tax form the specific allocation
to programs that his personal tax will fund.
In Egalitarian America students are taught objectivism - viewing things
from at least two opposing points and judge things by
their value in each view, and the overall value to society by a
distribution of views. This is important since today we scuffle and
compete and fight and spar endlessly without any progress toward the
result that best serves the public interest. It's a significant waste
of capacity.
Foreign policy will be a balance of trust, cooperation, and
competition. Like in industry, competition between states is
managed to minimize
negative side-effects. Support for democracy, no support for
dictators, or warfare. Support for international treaties, laws
and institutions. Egalitarian America will be extended worldwide
in principled coalition. The military will be strong but for
defensive purposes only. No arms sales. This policy adds to
the military's strength - it retains the maximum mandate. To
counter other
states' ambitions, EA draws clear lines in the sand
and takes defensive measures when those are violated. Deception
is not tolerated. EA works to support democracy
worldwide by refraining from trade that benefits unfair power
concentrations and by actively supporting local, clean sustainable
industry, and other initiatives (3).
Egalitarian America is going to
be a great thing. Without it, this
country, and eventually this world will succumb to corporate war, with
massive bloodshed. Egalitarian America must start out at the grass
roots. Let's start now.
(1)
Self-employed craftsmen industry to be vigorously promoted and
prominently featured in the EA charter. "For he who builds out of
his
own free will and creative expression we can admire not only what he
built but what he is." - Wilhelm von Humboldt
(2)
Currently, corporate and other "special" interest lobbies write the
policy which translates into legislation, and directives and budgets of
departments under the executive branch. The corporations, their
lobbies, think tanks, academia and the government itself contain
cubicles among which individuals shift among. This inter-institution
mobility provides career flexibility and may address stagnation and
burnout issues. But it severely damages the government's ability to
uphold its charter - to protect and serve the public interest against
the hegemony of "special" interests. We define the virtues of the
public interest elsewhere, but define here the removal of "special"
interest influence, and inter-institution mobility, as the primary
means of restoring productivity to interactions between the federal
government and private interests.
(3)
One of the great U.S. foreign policy debacles has been the violent
promotion of neo-liberal capital around the world
under the banner of democracy. EA will promote real democracy by
empowering the people to defend themselves from capitalist
excess, through online educational programs to teach people how to
build and maintain small local diverse and dispersed craftsman
industry, co-ops, and distribution networks. These are the
necessary foundation of real democracy. The governments have
responsibilities to maintain competition and protect the environment,
the society and the people from capitalist excess and
corruption.
A great example of how capital severely obstructs democracy is this
from a Chomsky
interview: (he's speaking
of Brazil but I see it in the U.S.too, e.g. why Ralph Nader doesn't get
votes) "Remember that these societies have a very serious problem: They
don’t control their wealthy, and the wealthy have virtually no social
obligations, from paying taxes to keeping their money in the country.
That’s their core problem, the state is subordinated to the wealthy. If
you look at the major problems they face, from what’s called debt to
the agrarian problem to violence, it essentially goes back to that.
Unless that problem is dealt with, you can understand why a poor person
would vote for an oppressor. Because voting for someone who has your
interests at heart may harm you, since that will bring on violence by
the rich."
Here's another one from the same interview: "So
just as you can talk openly there [a
shantytown in Buenos Aires]
about the fact that Brazil and
Argentina don’t really have a debt, that it’s a social construct, not
an economic fact—they may not agree, but at least they understand what
you’re talking about—whereas here I think it would be extremely hard to
get the point across. Again, I don’t want to overdraw the lines. There
are plenty of exceptions. But the differences are noticeable, and I
think the differences have to do with power. The more power and
privilege you have, the less it’s necessary to think, because you can
do what you want anyway. When power and privilege decline, willingness
to think becomes part of survival."
Egalitarian America
DETAILS [summary]
DEFINING
THE PROBLEM
SOME
TERMS
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM
FOREIGN POLICY
INDIVIDUAL
CONTRIBUTION
FEAR OF
SOCIALIST CONTROLS
TAKING THE FEAR OUT OF SOCIETY
ECONOMIC/INDUSTRIAL
POLICY
MERIT SUBSIDY
REAL DEMOCRACY
ADVANCING ORDER
MERIT
PRIVATIZATION
COMPETITION
GLOBALIZATION
END OF PROPERTY RIGHTS
ABUSE
PREVENTIVE MEDICAL
RESEARCH
THE ESTABLISHMENT
OCCUPATIONS
FREE
ENTERPRISE
SEPARATION OF
CHURCH AND STATE
WHAT PEOPLE WANT
MISCELLANEOUS
ACTIONS
DEFINING
THE PROBLEM - It's Nov.
2004 and the U.S. is in the middle of
an eight year occupation by the most backward president in U.S.
history, taking us out of the Enlightenment and back to the Middle
Ages, from science, reason and moral clarity, to faith, mysticism and
moral ambiguity. This president doesn't think.
Instead, he adopts on faith the most divisive and radical positions of
the far-right. He sets a very poor example. We want a
president who weighs carefully all ideas and embraces those ideas that
are in the best
long term public interest.
The right-wing coalition driving this administration has an agenda that
includes stripping all regulatory burdens on business, giving privilege
to big businesses, and allowing them to set public
policy and to feed at the public trough. EA insists on truly free
markets where the consumer demands and gets best value, where the
establishment yields to beneficial paradigm shifts, and
where the people are in full control of public policy, enforcing rules
on business, including environmental and social progress.
The right-wing agenda includes total privatization of every public
enterprise, deliberately ignoring performance. Often, public
enterprise performs much better than private enterprise. EA
insists on competition between
the two, demonstrating
which delivers best value, and benefitting from that.
The right-wing agenda is annihilation of any political movement
remotely socialist, both domestically and abroad. This
reveals a destructive, institutionalized radicalism, driving ignorance,
intolerance, obsession, and conflict. The
radical left-wing forces that brawl with the right are similarly
problematic. EA demands that the government embrace moderation
both domestically and abroad. Ideas are judged by their merit and
how
they contribute to the greater good.
The right-wing agenda includes using military power to impose trade
policies on nations to benefit U.S. big business. EA
will require big business to compete on the merits. EA will
promote free and fair trade abroad with a significant social element,
strongly pressuring foreign governments that do not purse the interests
of their people. The U.S. is quite delinquent in this area,
and is destroying its leadership role in the world.
The right-wing agenda includes selective and often perverse
interpretations of the Constitution to achieve its ends, and also
selective application of the rule of law both here and abroad, to
achieve
its ends including the destruction of international treaties and
organizations. Both of the establishment parties are politicizing
the judiciary. EA reverses these fundamental corrosions.
The rule of law is paramount.
The right-wing agenda includes merging church
and state. It respects freedom of religion for those religions
with utility for its coalition against secularism. Obviously,
secular EA will strengthen the separation
between
church and
state.
SOME TERMS - There are
alternatives to capitalism.
Communism
features state ownership of all production, prone to corruption. Dirigisme
is an economy with strong government direction, e.g. the U.S.
subsidizes key industries while pretending that it doesn't. Socialism
is capitalism with the state owning key industries. Distributism
is capitalism with means of
production distributed as widely as possible. EA embraces
Distributism.
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM- One
aspect of the
philosophy behind Egalitarian America is getting to the root of the
problem, i.e., abstracting an issue. Abstraction, in the EA context,
is: identifying an issue's cause and recognizing that that causes
other issues, motivating one to address multiple issues by
addressing their common cause. For example, one issue is the plunder of
oysters for pearls. We might make laws banning pearl hunting. But that
isn't the only plunder going on. Maybe it's better to address,
instead of the many punders, the cause of the plunders- human
overpopulation.
In the early days pearl supply might
support demand. But overpopulation puts all kinds of strains on the
earth.
Why let people multiply with wild abandon and cage them in webs of
laws? Better to address overpopulation. We can take the abstraction
even further and ask why some populations overmultiply. This usually
falls back on subconscious desires for power. The pursuit of power to
combat fears and insecurities. Naturally, the plight of the oysters,
and
of the earth under general threat, are addressed by targeting the
sources of man's fears and insecurities. In our example, we find that
there are multiple levels of abstraction as human overpopulation
pollutes, strains and alters elementary resources like air & water
in addition to plundering biological/ecological treasures. EA relies on
abstraction and puts a lot of energy into defining them accurately
and objectively and addressing them.
FOREIGN POLICY -
EA will aid the
people of the world by advocating methods to defend themselves from
power abuse, be it state or private. EA will advocate the
worldwide rule of law by the principle of universality. EA will
not participate in arms trade, espionage or economic sanctions except
under circumstances clearly in the public interest. The
determination of this will employ significant energy - a defining
charateristic of EA. In EA, military action is purely in
self-defense of the
homeland, limited to fighting on the homeland itself and aid to
allies
limited to fighting on their homeland. There is no invasion into the
offender's territory. There is
fear that if you do not dominate then you will be dominated, and that
the best defense is offense, but this is a basic ethical mistake.
EA takes the sensible approach - planning for rapid
engagement should an empire arise. EA maintains that there will
be no coercive empires on Earth. EA will go to elaborate lengths
to promote basic rights. For example, EA will propose that all
nations sign an agreement to allow the UN permanent access in their
countries to supply food, water medicine and information all
residents. These networks will prevent dictators from
completely supressing their people. The networks are not
effective by themselves. The key to effectiveness is in their
management. EA will pump significant human energy into
maintaining the effectiveness of these networks.
INDIVIDUAL
CONTRIBUTION - John Dewey said as long as
there is private
control over the economic system, democracy is a joke. He said you
can't even talk about democracy until you have democratic control of
industry, commerce, banking, everything. That means control of the
institutions and community by the people who work in them. The above
from Chomsky - Class Warfare. The way to implement this is
to add to the school curriculum the how and why for each individual's
contribution, in some capacity. Each citizen is given a decision to
make or some research to undertake and the necessary source
information,
and is strongly encouraged to perform this civic duty. Prosperity
absorbs the
inefficiency in this mechanism, with great aid from cooperative energy
that is largely suppressed today.
FEAR OF
SOCIALIST CONTROLS - People may fear
that EA adds a lot of socialist controls, and is effectively an
engineered society. EA
is as much
about removing current controls as about adding new ones. People are
unaware of the current controls but are certainly aware of their
negative effects, and are very confused by the whole mess. For example,
the topics allowed in public debate are restricted by the
establishment. EA removes
the
confusion by opening the conversation, facing the negative and
integrating the solution into the existing framework. Of course a
society is a complex, organic and
dynamic thing. Solutions with the most beneficial result are integrated
in the least intrusive way causing the least
disturbance. This value, skill and discipline are necessarily mastered
by EA "bureaucrats".
TAKING THE FEAR OUT OF SOCIETY-
we'll take the fear out
of society -
notice that wikipedia.org is a free encyclopedia allowing anyone to
edit its contents. Some may fear that people will
maliciously corrupt its content, and lament that there's no money to be
made at it. But people are mostly not malicious and in the rare
cases that wikipedia's content is corrupted it can be recovered through
a
history
mechanism. Thesoftware makes change reviews easy and reviews may be
undertaken periodically, or editors may be notified
automatically of changes. And money isn't needed. Contributors are
performing a public service and doing something they love to do.
This often increases prospects for monetary reward elsewhere. The
full
story on the gift culture hasn't been widely disseminated yet but it
certainly produces some excellent things, such as wikipedia, and
software
such as linux, apache, sendmail and gnu compilers, while driving merit
enterprise. A tendency in the capitalist culture is to block the gift
culture in order to
enable more opportunity to make money (Google: SCO IBM Linux suit).
This is competition running amok. EA works to put competition back in
its sandbox.
ECONOMIC/INDUSTRIAL
POLICY - we want Merit
Enterprise industrial
policy and Best Value economic policy. Merit Enterprise, as opposed to
free enterprise, rewards those producers who compete on the merits.
Typical example is Apple Computer, a true innovator. We're trying to
eliminate the Microsoft type which works to corner markets, usually
with
state backing. There is a great difference between the talents
enlisted in merit enterprise and enlisted in monopoly pursuit.
Unfortunately, free
enterprise in the U.S. today is actually freedom for producers to
control markets, not freedom for consumers to select Best
Value. This creates various benefits for the producer,
producers in general, and the state, all at the expense of the
consumer. Much of the market manipulation is inspired by a
synergy between military, political and economic empire
motivations. Thus "free market" is a concept that largely exists
only in the imagination under current U.S.-style capitalism. In
EA
markets, the consumer sets the term of Best Value
via the clout of market demand power protected by the state. Producers
compete to deliver Best Value and any deviation from this goal sets in
motion adjustments of various incentives by the state to correct the
producer's goals. EA will vigorously carry out this policy and
defend it from corrpution.
MERIT SUBSIDY - I
always felt this
society should be doing more to help people contribute - a merit
subsidy. There should be public subsidy to leverage truly
exceptional
performance. The conventional wisdom is that the free enterprise
system
does allow consumer demand to reward performance based on
merit. This is true in a few segments of
industry but is generally not, especially in computer software.
EA will also reform the intellectual property policy to enforce
Jefferson's intent with respect to protection time limits.
Intellectual property will lose its protection after it is commoditized
or rendered obsolete and will fall into the public domain. At
this point the owner will be obligated to release all documentation
also into the public domain. This prevents copyright protection
abuse, as in Microsoft, and it enables maintenance of obsolete
computing products, reducing excess resource consumption and
profiteering.
REAL DEMOCRACY -
The majority of Americans are disgusted with the state
of their democracy - private capital runs the government through
disinformation, campaign funding, and lobbying. In EA the
government will answer to the people, and not in proportion to their
power. But EA will accept the best ideas, from the most talented
people, that further the public interest. It is difficult to
select between power and talent in a society under
disinformation. But in EA, people will be free to embrace the
public interest and the ideas that support it. It will be much
easier to distinguish influence that serves and influence that destroys
the public interest. Many capitalists will insist that this
constraint is counterproductive, and not in the true spirit of
capitalism. These capitalists are asking that the public interest
become their hostage. We simply won't tolerate it. The will
of the majority will rule EA.
ADVANCING ORDER-
Greatly motivating Egalitarian America is the human
enthusiasm for
efficiency and optimization of processes. Capitalism is a natural
process, not very efficient or orderly, like nature, but we recognize
its value, as we must recognize nature's value. Capiralism is an
open highway for the entrepreneur. It is vital in that respect,
and we must preserve it. But we also recognize that the
human desire for order is also a part of nature that deserves
preservation, even if it seems to conflict with the chaos of
nature. We also need an advancing order as each generation needs
to contribute to the civilization, to learn from past experience and
build upon it. Human governance should recognize the desire for
an advancing order
with active policy. There is also the natural human tendency to
destroy, steal and dominate. We don't seek to extinguish negative
drives
but we seek to supress them, to a reasonable degree, in deliberate,
well
thought out ways, first and foremost to instill in people that these
must remain subservient, which is unfortunately a great
challenge.
MERIT
PRIVATIZATION - Egalitarian America will roll back the radical
privatizations of
government that is going on now. Privatized services are far more
expensive while the claim is that they are less expensive. They also
provide massive opportunities for corruption because they are not under
disclosure, they are extremely likely to place their own immediate
interests, their cronies' interests and the general interest of private
power ahead of the public interest. Private interests are often corrupt
in today's society - they strive for market share in ways other than
delivering best value. Current regulators and judges turn a blind eye,
even breaking the laws themselves, censored in the media. Public
servants subsidize certain corporations, usually parasitic or predatory
or plain shoddy, to dominate world markets. Rampant privatizations in
the midst of all these corruptions will make for utter chaos.
Egalitarian America will allow diverse and flexible combinations of
approaches in industry and civic functions but naturally the consumer
will select the approach that delivers best value.
COMPETITION - Let's talk
about competition. Competition is
productive when carefully
controlled, and destructive otherwise. A couple of examples: In
earlier centuries, European powers were rivals in many productive
pursuits -
scientific discovery, governance, etc. There were several rivals
on a roughly level playing field and they were likely more productive
than if there had been one dominating the rest. They were
competing for prestige and power, which are relatively dysfunctional
goals, but the pursuit itself, the means, was highly productive.
If these goals are pursued by other means, such
as damaging an opponent's ability to compete, then productivity is
compromised. Microsoft, aided
by the U.S., has pursued market conquest not by competing on the
merits, but
by warfare. The result is minimal productive contribution by
Microsoft to the industry. EA recognizes that there are
conditions that make competition productive and EA imposesthose
contitions on industry. This is part of merit enterprise.
It's a specialized type of free enterprise - free for those who wish to
compete
on the merits, restrictive for those who don't.
GLOBALIZATION - The
western industrial revolution was a humanitarian and
environmental nightmare for those who experienced it.
The upside was newfound prosperity for the workers. After the novelty
of the workers' newfound prosperity wore off, they started demanding
improvements to those humanitarian and environmental conditions.
Globalization promised the capitalists new populations willing to
accept the old nightmare conditions in exchange for newfound
prosperity. Thus capitalists could drop prices of their goods back down
to the previous nightmare-enabled levels, and much further, since the
new populations worked for less pay. Globalization protester haven't
come
up with a viable alternative even after this process moved through
several phases. The capitalists argue that globalization advantages are
too good to pass up - pulling some people out of poverty, lowering
prices for others. But these are only selling points. The real
advantages for the capitalists, not revealed, are new opportunities to
exploit for new profit opportunities crops of naive peasants. Also,
new business for shipping, telecom and other globalization
infrastructure. In regard to these new businesses, globalization was
developed for the same reason as intensive farming - enabling new, but
redundant, unnecessary, and ultimately damaging, high-volume
energy-intensive industries to facilitate increments of productivity,
presumably an overall net positive, but not proven. Egalitarian America
recognizes the benefit of capital-driven globalization - matching of a
low cost producer with a willing overseas consumer, not possible in
either domestic market. But this is not a truly free market mechanism -
it's driven by this described match with no view of the big picture,
because the narrower mechanism is a more secure profit channel than the
big picture, -it was chosen for that reason. The big picture, and a
system which addresses it, are the pursuit of the government,
accountable to the people. In Egalitarian America, the labor force
decides if it wants jobs and higher prices or no jobs and lower prices.
END OF PROPERTY RIGHTS
ABUSE - Property rights protection have been key
to the success of capitalism. But property right can and are
being abused to control markets, stifle progress, and worst, greatly
restricting
industrial, academic, civic, medical and legal progress. Rights to
means of production, but especially information, are being
abused. The idea has
been that if information costs money, people will be motivated to make
money to buy the information to accomplish their greater goals.
This is highly restricting. People become wage slaves to buy
access to information. But human
creativity is spontaneous, and is constrained by the deliberation
required to gain access to restricted information. The internet has
fulfilled its promise of open information to some degree, but
information
continues to be suppressed by power interests. If all legal and all
medical information were freely available, much of the doctor's and the
lawyer's work could be automated and efficiencies could jump
exponentially. The overall point
is that entrenched interests restrict human potential by restricting
access to information, and restricting opportunity to contribute to
society. EA will protect intellectual property on a limited time
basis, and will pressure industries that resist utilizing
productivity-enhancing technologies.
PREVENTIVE MEDICAL
RESEARCH - Egalitarian America will promote medical
research geared toward
understanding the causes of diseases and prevention, rather than the
current emphasis on whatever can make the most money, which usually
includes symptom treatment and drugs. This change of policy results
from the change in the source of the government's mandate - from
private sector mandate to public sector mandate. Further, if
patient's medical records were electronic
with free access, another leap is realized. Further, if people had
regular bi-annual checkups, with comprehensive tests, including
lifestyle information, recorded in the free electronic record, then
much of medical research could eliminate the data gathering process and
productivity is accelerated by orders of magnitude.
THE ESTABLISHMENT
- The establishment seems hard to
break. A large
portion of Americans have at least a small stake in the status quo,
i.e. property. And many more dream of having a stake too, and a larger
one. Why rock the boat that allows someone with the will to get ahead?
This is called tunnel-vision. This argument comes with a view of only
part of the picture, and is afraid of the rest. Egalitarian America
will allow you to go much farther if you have that will. EA will allow
many more people to go far, because we show people how to fish. But in
EA, you can't become an 800 lb gorilla. You can't monopolize markets,
distort markets, or engineer markets for private gain. The markets will
be managed by the government in the public interest. This doesn't mean
setting prices and manufacturing jobs. It means ensuring that consumers
can demand and get best value, including paradigm shifts. This is merit
enterprise. Even if you succeed wildly by competing on the merits, EA
will still limit your power. You will have to learn how to deal with
it. It's not so difficult. There are other ways to find fulfillment.
You can diversify in that area. It turns out that the competition will
be stiff so that when an overachiever hits the limit for private power,
there will be no noticeable voids. Many more people will be much more
productive in EA than in the current society, because of the free flow
of information, truth, trust, justice, freedom and happiness.
OCCUPATIONS - In
Egalitarian America there will be many
new sectors
of occupation. We'll cut half the defense, medical, legal, and
PR/advertising jobs as these industries are bloated today. The new
sectors will include a.) coop management, for supporting vast numbers
of dispersed small businesses focusing on efficiencies of scale, b.)
market management, which ensures merit enterprise, i.e. consumers get
best
value, and includes protection of paradigm shifts of all sizes from
establishment obstruction, and c.) public information, which ensures
that crucial high-quality information is available to enable people to
participate effectively in communities and markets, and protect EA from
ideological/political subversion. These sectors effectively make
up the "power management" industry that channels economic/social power
in positive directions, away from negative directions.
FREE ENTERPRISE
- The spirit, essence and power of free
enterprise is
this - government policy imposes no constraints on people's creation
and implementation of ideas, and supplies no social welfare, so people
are highly motivated to develop ideas to earn a living. It works well.
It's great. It's wonderful. But when taken to the extreme, problems
arise. A.) It's unrealistic and cruel to expect everyone to become
successful entrepreneurs. B.) some enterprises are necessary which are
not adequately driven by the profit motive. C.) in particular, the meta
enterprise of managing the enterprises is necessary to mitigate
corruption and destruction. In Egalitarian America, free enterprise is
allowed to "be all that it can be", except corruptive and destructive.
This regulation is a crucial feature of EA that requires diligent
effort. Bureaucracies are notorious for falling into lethargy and
ineffectiveness. Bureaucracies impose hierarchy. The way to mitigate
hierarchy is to train the entire population for rotation through this
management. The entire population needs to be fully informed of how the
system operates. The EA philosophy of open information facilitates
this. Items A.) and B.) require that radical privatization
running rampant today cease and desist.
SEPARATION OF
CHURCH AND STATE - EA will select the principle most
appropriate for
federal enforcement. In the case of abortion, absolutely free and
unfettered clinics will be available to all, because religious beliefs
will not be imposed by federal law. The state will cooperate,
however, with churches that wish to impose church laws on their
members. This preserves freedom of religion, and also separation
of church and state, putting the burden on the church of enforcing its
own rules. The libertarians will appreciate the "light
hand". But the key element is that the church is required to
uphold its relationship with the individual.
WHAT PEOPLE WANT- Most
people are overwhelmed by the complexity of
society, and this
inhibits them from contributing in more effective ways to make it
better. Egalitarian America aids people in this task by providing the
right kinds of information, instruction, and inspiration that enables
the population to better
articulate what it wants. To progress with civic institutions, there is
no alternative but to delve into this complexity. Our attempts to
simplify our realities result in choices with unexpected side effects.
We will develop literature that articulates the issues so that
democratic participation is more enjoyable and more effective. This
will be a significant enterprise, employing a lot of manpower, and with
great dividends. It will require deprogramming people from today's
belief that power interests know best.
THE NATURAL FRONT
- As Joe Q. Public grew up with it in the
American heartland, the pop
culture, driven by neoliberalism, provided something cool, albeit with
blemishes of elitism, insult, inequality, exploitation. Joe resented
the
blemishes but it was a tolerable trade-off - the pros outweighed the
cons - which Joe fantasizing under the rug. Besides what was the
alternative? The stereotypical nerd librarian girl, who
personified
socialism, was extremely boring. Had Joe been able to do the
arithmetic, Joe could have understood her and appreciated her. But Joe
didn't. The
fantasizing later got Joe into trouble - losing touch with reality is a
serious problem. To stop the neoliberal drive we have to present
socialism like classic rock. The librarian girl must embrace some
cool fashion. She should not resent it. She should open up to it. When
the two sides join together, they form a natural front against
extremism. This Natural Front will be a key part of Egalitarian America.
MISCELLANEOUS -
Opportunity to contribute productively to society should not be
determined by pedigree, heredity, geography, wealth, or connections,
nor should the large-scale stifling of information, opportunity or
productivity become anyone's pursuit.
- Egalitarian America will be a world leader, blazing the trail to
define such things as what are the appropriate levels of
international activism, as opposed to neutrality, and what are the
responsibilities that come with pursuits of influence, assertions of
power, and attempts to mold the world.
- Egalitarian America number one priority will be to scale back the
military budget, and international arms trade, currently dominated by
the U.S./Israel. This will prevent escalations of power abuse such as
occurred in the 1990s by the neocons.
- EA will not limit economic reward for industrial merit but the more
powerful the baron, the more EA will fight any power abuse, including
zero-sum power maintenance and public policy influence.
- The partisans, especially the right wing, like to monopolize
resources and shut out competition so there's no reference to measure
performance
against. EA will ensure that each policy has a means to
demonstrate
itself.
- A state or enterprise has less of a claim to the excuse of human
imperfection as an individual. Since a plurality of
opinions is
possible, and checks are available, moral failures and even
strategic failures have little excuse. With proper attention, an
enterprise should be able to average out human errors and
failures. We
hold groups to high standards because the resources available are large
and the effect of their
failures is amplified.
- People often allow optimism to mask the negative
side of reality. In Egalitarian America we apply universalism to
minimize the negative while also maintaining optimism to fill in the
gaps.
- Chomsky says long term and
short term goals can conflict, e.g. long term we want coops or
federalism to keep power dispersed while in the short term we need a
powerful federal government to restrain private tyrannies. This
illustrates the need for a dynamic or fluid policy driving by specific
goals, not rigid ideology. A better government is a
more precision government, a more complex government.
- Capitalism draws the best performance out of people by imposing the
risk of loss on them. The larger their business, the more there
is to
lose, thus, the more carefully one works to maintain it. We want
to
preserve this motivational feature of capitalism. It presents a
valuable opportunity to pursue and achieve a great reward, to attain
levels of self-worth, and contribution to society. EA preserves
the
good that comes out of capitalism. But it draws the line where
capitalism is taken to extremes, where producers damage competitors,
control markets, constrain consumers, and run governments.
- America values freedom for the few, Egalitarian America values
freedom
for all, which implies justice and truth.
- conservative don't care about health and the environment because they
look to the afterlife as their paradise. the percent who place all
their value on this life and this world will get their percent of
public funds, and public influence, to put into this world
- I want to add consideration to anarchism, defined by Chomsky as
effort to undermine illegitimate forms of authority. This definition is
a very important was to approach the task of managing egalitarianism
and universalism.
- Hegemony is often created when elites, unaware of their influence,
set casual preferences, and remain ambivalent of the fallout.
- Egalitarian America will put the globalization push on hold while
U.S. economic and industrial policies are reformed. There's no sense
pushing a flawed system off on the rest of the world.
- Egalitarian America will integrate into the current system by
attributing geographic areas with a level of egalitarianism set by its
property owners. Egalitarians can purchase contiguous land
parcels under egalitarian legal
jurisdiction, providing sanctuary for egalitarians.
- EA will support small businesses through the coop concept. Small
businesses are vital as they comprise the bulk of the economy and the
major source of innovations, as is the public sector. In stark
contrast, large private interests inhibit innovations and progress,
despite having efficiencies of scale. Coops are the means for
increasing the efficiencies of small businesses, especially large
numbers, serving local geographic areas, duplicating a function.
- EA provides private enterprise for those who prefer it and public
enterprise for those who prefer it. EA rejects attempts to snuff
either one out. EA is open to allow each mechanism to develop
according to merit. Each mechanism has a right to compete.
EA will apply this common sense broadly.
- EA supports consumer unions for the purpose of boycotting products
and thus controlling the behavior of producers.
- EA supports fair trade over free trade.
- Everyone has a right to a point of view. But how warped a view
does a person with responsibility to others have a right to? EA
will answer questions like this.
- The religious right believes it holds the moral high ground because
it submits to god's will, and fights to implement god's will in the law
of the land. It believes these "noble" pursuits override its wild
violation of human rights, commandments, and civil laws. It affects
U.S. policies in indirect but powerful ways. Much of the corruption in
industrial policy is enabled by the religious right's neglect of the
corruption by its coalition partners - the capitalists. Much of the
destruction in foreign policy is enabled by the religious right's
fanaticism toward Middle East issues. Thus separation of church and
state and strengthening the rule of law are two complementary,
overlapping, objectives.
- In Egalitarian America there will be a wall between the private
and public professions. Currently, people network between pubic
service, private industry, and their networks of think tanks, lobby
organizations, academia and law firms. By network we mean they both
converse with each other and swap jobs. Conflict of interest can arise
when the conversing gets too cozy and when info is swapped along with
jobs. EA will employ various means to combat conflict of interest. More
detail later.
- We can't force those motivated by greed to be ungreedy.
Instead, we allow and respect those who want to contribute to society
by building mini-empires to do so, but in controlled confines,
restricting them from committing
gross abuses. Thus we avoid coercion. People are free to
evolve their values independently.
- In EA, the government ensures the consumer is able to extract best
value from the market, implying that producers may not price-fix,
monopolize, or otherwise influence the market and prices.
But in addition to best value the government will ensure that
transactions will not inhibit competition or
opportunities for entrepreneurship, contribution, and
self-sufficiency. Free markets must be cultivated.
- EA supports critical thinking and the people's understanding of the
wider world.
- EA provides an incentive/penalty system for industrial developments
depending on their support for the public interest. For example,
today, the medical industry, especially pharmaceuticals, is wildly
skewed toward bandaid fixes instead of preventive treatments.
This is a huge example of the tail wagging the dog - they found a way
to make a buck and so resources and momentum veers off in that
direction, without the best interest of th public. EA will use
taxes to discourage these trends, and incentives to encourage attention
to the public's best interest.
- EA will outlaw government propaganda. Public relations efforts
by private interests will be constrained according to the public
interest. Propaganda represents unproductive competition.
With power comes responsibility.
- EA intends to utilize international law against nationalism to
minimize state rivalries and power abuses.
- EA will annually declare a formal joint commitment to peace with each
and every nation on earth and remove its military bases from around the
world and abolish all bilateral treaties in favor of world government
based on universalism. EA will also establsish world guidelines
for colonial reparations for indigenous peoples, and set and enforce
rules regarding sovereignty of land and property, property ownership
being limited to prevent oligarchy. EA will promote free will and
not coerce other nations.
- EA will write the school text books to be objective instead of
painting such a rosy picture about the U.S.
- EA will be based on a set of principles. One those being that
self-interest will not obstruct justice, freedoms, rights. One
large problem we have today is obstruction of progress through
establishment fears, but another problem is the growth of industries
and occupations and thus markets which avoid delivering
products/services that are most beneficial/desirable to society and in
demand by consumers. For example, the public
relations industry is not beneficial to the public interest.
Corporate law has limits beyond which it becomes a burden on
society. This has all been driven by the principle of freedom
taken to a dysfunctional extreme We need to develop in our minds
a value of justice and freedom for all, and thus a sense of proper
balance between private and public interests.
- EA interprets liberty in the Declaration of
Independence to be liberty to secure inalienable rights. Thus
power and wealth do not give one more liberty than another, because
wealth and power is not inalienable.
- EA will make justice an inalienable right available to all,
independent of wealth, to the extent possible. EA preserves the
monetary reward system for lawyers in order to leverage for society
their talents which might otherwise remain undeveloped, beyond the
much-preferred social reward system. However, utilization of
these talents to a great extent against the public interest, e.g. a
culture of exploitation by private interests against the public intere,
will not be tolerated. Thus to a great extent, EA delivers
justice through maintaining a culture of values that are balanced
between public and private interests, much more so than today's.
- The image of the U.S. flag will not be allowed to adorn messages that
are funded by private money.
ACTIONS - Egalitarian America
(EA) offers a philosophy
but also lists
of actions. Read Ralph
Nader, Noam Chomsky, Michael Albert, Gene
Sharp, Brian Martin. Read AlterNet, Common Dreams, Znet,
Dissident Voice, Axis of Logic and Yes! magazine. Check out this
action-oriented article - How to End the
Iraq War. Learn about progressive movements, join and form
coalitions with them. Try Common Cause and the World Social Forum.
Write to your representatives about issues, register people to
vote. Reach out to conservatives - most have progressive
inclinations but don't trust non-conservatives. Most importantly,
live an
Egalitarian American life, with Moral purchasing.
Walk the walk. Avoid
non-egalitarian trade, boycott non-egalitarian producers (integrating
your social and economic values). Minimize your consumption of
high-capital products. Take care of your car so you can keep it
as long as possible. Drive less, walk more. Learn to repair
things, build things, grow your own food, practice preventative
health. Minimize your energy consumption, build your own house,
support local small businesses, encourage people to start their own
businesses. Join co-ops.
All these things create more demand
for an egalitarian capitalism and less reward for capitalist
excess. Volunteer to benefit the public, especially in
less-covered areas such as free online information, e.g. Project Gutenberg,
Wikipedia, GNU software.
Learn how certain businesses harm people
and the planet and boycott them, pressure them in writing, ask others
to boycott them, and demand that the government boycott them. Of
course there is much government policy, and also academic, media, and
NGO activities to protest and change.
SOLIDIFY AND
EXPAND THE EA CHARTER - If you want to further develop
your background before stepping up your action, here is a more
comprehensive set of resources for study. Naturally, you will
want to discover for yourself what resources are out there, but this is
a start. Consider the material you read as construction
materials for building a house. Your goal is not to store the
materials. Your goal and focus while collecting materials is to
construct a well-designed house. To understand
human nature, and learn how to open your mind, and channel your
egalitarian energy, read Psychological
Self-Help. Read online books from diverse places and times,
check Project Gutenberg for
The Origin of Species. Find out about the history of
the world, with an eye toward controlling the human quest for
empire. Particularly relevant to EA is the study of the European Enlightenment
philosophy, written into our nation's founding documents from which we
benefit, and which are currently under assault. All of philosophy is worth
studying for context. Write down your own philosophy and
ideology, based on the justice and injustice in your society that you
find important and compare it with others'. What motivates
people? What motivates you? Should you channel
your drives to prevent injuring others? Should you pursue
empire? Should a limit on empire be imposed? Should the
society continue permitting secret agendas and mind games or require
open intent? Study disinformation.
But first, focus on some of the contemporary structure of empire
ideology. Check the Weekly
Standard, Capitalism Magazine,
ASC, AEI, Cato,
Heritage, and PNAC. Browse the White House website from both
the premises that it's a non-partial institution of, by and for the
people, and that it's a tool to destroy the public interest. Why
does the Democratic party allow this? Consider the influence of
the Christian Coalition, and AIPAC on policy. Is their
influence fair? It is a complex
subject, but the ultimate questions to ask about the empire coalition
include: What are their goals? What are their methods? And
what moral and practical compromises do these force upon the people,
however inadvertently? Read The Emperor's New Clothes.
The wider task involves filtering out our
own biases, filtering out disinformation, and recording the results of
the analysis for use in negotiating with and accommodating everyone in
the process of developing and implementing EA, an environment in which
everyone will live and prosper. Study the popular media output in
the context of disinformation campaigns and hidden agendas of the
partisans. Consider how appearances of objectivity and morality
are maintained with lip service about reforms. Read the
progressive sources listed above. Ask if these sources visualize
a better alternative, one that can counter empire both from within and
without. We can add to these more establishment-oriented sources
such as The Nation, Tom Paine, Foreign Policy in Focus, and CounterPunch. Are these
empire lite? Maybe they have a vested interest in your not
taking action, but merely subscribing to their magazine? To
further progress, study other nations. How successful are
other variants of democracy, economic structure, cultures of
values? What about Cuba's educational, medical and agricultural
progress? What about many South American democratic
achievements? What about peace and prosperity in Asia, by diverse
social and economic policies? What about India's and
Poland's non-violent revolutions against their empire
masters? Finally, learn to write with The Elements Of
Style, Lexical FreeNet.
And help solidify and expand on the EA charter.
INTEGRATION OF
EA INTO EXISTING FRAMEWORK - Existing institutions will
be transformed with
charter modifications. Pick your institution and write a charter
modification to conform to EA principles. Think through how the
institution's structure should reflect, how its staff should work by,
and how its product should promote EA principles. Consider first how
and why this institution was created, the need that it filled, and how
that need will evolve in EA. Consult with experts in the EA network to
gain a broader perspective. Post on the web a page with the
institution's original charter, the modifications, and explanations for
these. These institution charter modifications will help form the
backbone of the EA charter itself. Another thing people can do is write
instructional material to train and educate others on their civic
responsibilities in EA. The principles need to be disseminated.
Multimedia presentations for kids, all the various channels in use
today can be re-used. Another way to get the ball rolling is to start
living EA by networking with other enthusiasts, building physical EA
residential and industrial communities, with operating legal systems,
generating documentation and ratings of existing enterprises so that EA
enthusiasts can be proactive, selective and influential while
navigating the job market, and inside enterprises, with consent of the
proprietors, of course.
SOCIAL SERVICE -
The public needs information dissemination. Many
people don't access the internet, but need the information, for disease
prevention, nutrition, much logistics info. A key part of
implementing EA is simply to live by EA principles, such as
volunteering
to help disseminate information. Get a
laptop computer. These are lower power, have a lower
embodied cost,
and you can carry them around to people's houses and research things
online for them. You can also share EA principles with
them. Change your lifestyle, improve your diet, practice disease
prevention, drive a fuel-efficient car, boycott poorly-behaving
businesses, learn self-sufficiency, repair things instead of buying
replacements. Cooperate with your neighbors, peers and
family. Through living by EA principles you will benefit those
who need it or deserve it, you set examples and support the
like-minded, and your thereby help build desirable market demand that
businesses will be forced to respond to. This building of market
demand by and for people is critical "turf" to be protected from
capital.
The world has problems and the world has solutions. Different
people have different ideas of what consititues these. Those in
power have an idea which excludes the possibility that they are part of
the problem. This is natural. The way to define the world's
problems is to observe the world in the context of human nature and the
symptoms of the world's problems as experienced by all. Then we
come to an idea of the problem that is coherent with all, i.e. its
highest priority components correlating with the largest groups of
people. The contenders for the pieces to the problem can be
easily listed by people who observe their own basic needs. People
need food, clean and safe conditions first. Then, people
need family and then people need freedom, justice, dignity and
fulfillment. The world's problems stem from failures, intentional
or not, of societies to enable attainment of these needs.
Popular
sovereignty
Egalitarian Amerca II - this section is the start of a new book
outlining my ideology.
Chapter 1: Efficiency? What Efficiency?
I started an orchard from seed after failure trying to propagate
cuttings from existing tree branches. The two main disadvantages
of seed is a longer juvenile period and genetic variability. A
favorite criticism of both methods, from the standpoint of efficiency
is that neither compares to simply buying seedlings from a nursery,
which are even better than cuttings regarding the juvenility and
genetics issues, plus other benefits like good rootstocks and
pre-selection for the local climate. You can probably imagine
hearing that the argument for nursery seedlings from a spouse.
Economic pressure felt by families is usually quite intense and the
search for the most efficient, no-nonsense approach dominates when it
comes to household production, especially when there are alternatives
readily available, e.g. grocery store produce to feed the busy working
family.
But there happens to be various inefficiencies in commercial orchard
production, and there are similar inefficiencies in many other
industrial sectors. Before looking into those inefficiencies
let's ask why we might avoid weiging the efficiencies of commercial
versus home food production. The answer is simple: Only the
relative costs of the methods matter, not the efficiencies. We
choose based on the cost of our time, and if the time spent tending the
home orchard is more than the time spent at the job earning money to
buy the same amount of food from the grocery. So we nix the home
orchard. This is conventional wisdom, at least in late-20th
Century America.
Most people realize the potential added benefits to home
production: The produce usually tastes better, the challenge, the
pride of accomplishment, the beauty of an orchard. And most
people realize that we need our freedom to choose, we need a diversity
of paths even if some of them are not quite as efficient as others from
a simple economic standpoint. Still, many, if not most Americans
continue to be driven by that simple economic priority. Much has
been written on this issue. Most of us know that we best seek a
balance between economic and non-economic priorities. Most of us
know the home orchard can nurture the spirit, and that the spirit is
important.
When we look further into this we can find more details about the
benefits of the home orchard and the liabilities of commercial
production. Given the various social and environmental costs of
large-scale agricultural production, we can make a strong case for
moving most of it to small, local production, even in the residential
space, given the huge number of acres dedicated to suburban yards in
America. What seems to make this a difficult prospect is our lack
of understanding of the exact mechanisms involved in the development of
the systems of commerce. If people are unable to make the
argument against a system, especially an established one, they tend to
submit to it, or risk being labeled a fool.
A fair comparison of the two methods has to factor in all the benefits
and liabilities, of course. Our system is plagues with the fact
that we aren't being made aware of the details as we are mere cogs in
the machine. A favorite argument of elites is that common people
aren't interest or don't have the patience or capacity to look into
issues in depth. This is very self-serving, however. It's
well-known that we don't come near using all of our mental
capacity. It maybe that a reform in the education system can
bring more people to a higher level of awareness ofthe way the econoimc
system really works, and to make more decisions in consideration of
more factors, and to take on more responsibility for the maintenance of
their society.
Those inefficiencies of commerical production happen to be great.
The energy consumed in physical industries, such as agriculture is
huge, and it's not by accident. The inefficiencies have been
promoted by the energy industry. It is so prevalent and widely
acknowledged that people have learned to detach themselves from
responsibility, to void the issue from consideration in their moral
assessment of themselves. So a person may be a respectable
citizen in America while disregarding the 75% to 95% waste of fossil
fuel in the varous industrial sectors, agriculture, transport, heavy
industry.