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
SOLIDIFY AND EXPAND THE EA CHARTER
INTEGRATION OF EA INTO EXISTING FRAMEWORK
SOCIAL SERVICE




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 capitalismCommunism 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.