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

[Robin Green]

On Tue, Jul 20, 2004 at 11:11:21AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote:
> 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.

Such as?

The Soviet Union was not socialist, it was state capitalist.

> 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.

Actually in the US it hasn't; in other countries there is some interest.

> 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.

There is a field of study called conflict resolution: much neglected 
compared to, say, military strategy, but still, it's an active research
area. I think it's clear that many conflicts can be resolved without
resorting to violence.

Beyond that, without knowing what your specific problems with the Debian
process are, I can't really respond to those insinuations.

Do you think that freedom to participate in collective decisions on topics
inasmuch as those topics affect you (what pareconists call "self-management"),
is a bad freedom to have? Do you have a problem with freedom?
If so, sorry - you are not the "libertarian" that you paint yourself as
being with your last paragraph.

Funny how I often meet rightists who claim that leftists think they know what 
is best
for everyone (we don't!) and then, when pressed, admit that they think democracy
is a bad idea and you ought to have strong leadership instead (aka "telling 
people
what to do and think"). Methinks they dost protest too much.
-- 
Robin

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