Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] _happy_ poltical things

[Michael Poole]

Robin Green writes:

> My view is that you can't get rid of economic and military imperialism, and
> unaccountable governments, by doing some "liberal" tweaking around the edges.
> Only a non-capitalist world system like participatory economics
> ( http://www.parecon.org/ ) could hope to do that.

The "Intro to ParEcon" page there links to an essay titled "Socialism
as it was Always Meant to Be."  That essay, for example, spends a fair
amount claiming it is a workable system because nobody has bothered to
debunk it yet -- and ignores the historical counterexamples.  Most of
it is wishful handwaving; to take just one example, it argues that
workers should make "executive" type decisions after being informed by
experts of the likely consequences but ignores the qualifications of
those experts and assumes people make better decisions than they have
historically made.  That suggests that ParEcon, like most fringe
theories, has not gotten past the "First they ignore you" stage.

If you want an example of a current system that operates similarly to
socialism, look at Debian.  Pay close attention to the acrimony over
licenses, release policies, and semantic distinctions in the core
documents.  Then think how it would be different if it were a matter
of life or death rather than a hobby in peoples' free time.

You cite problems with governments that give too much influence to
large companies, but you ignore the problems that drove socialist and
communist systems into the ground.  Life is Darwinian, and communism
has proven to be non-competitive.  The solution to existing problems
is not to wish an impossible system into existence or to squash the
successful (things you mention later, like money supply or
inequalities that ideologues use to drum up support); it is to find an
efficient system that is also more just.

For everyone who can peacefully live alongside their neighbors, there
are two workable options: A government that sucks up most of its
citizens' effort and is so encumbered with checks and balances that it
cannot do much harm (perforce wasting a lot of resources), or a
government de minimis that leaves most progress to be made by its
citizens.  Some people prefer the former, some prefer the latter.
Arguing this fundamental over email is unlikely to change anyone's
mind: devotees of one model are not likely to switch sides without
major events in their life.

Michael Poole