Moffers,
I've been off some days (and also I had a couple of crashes on my PC. This
is the second time I write this message, the first has gone lost, hope in
this one....)
I thank all the contributors. Here are some of my considerations:
----------------
*** Randomcracy ***
BOBBY:
> Is it the most moral form of government ? It would be so if the most
> moral people are elected.
Indeed.
> Apperently, instead of the most moral, the
> most manipulative, and in some places the most corrupt people are the
> only choices that face the electorate. Even in the most successful
> democracies there is only the choice between tweedledee and tweedledum.
(If I understand well "tweedledee and tweedledum"), I'd say: especially in
the most succesful democracies. For example, the biggest problem we have in
Italy is the high number of various parties. It should be good, as it's more
easy to find a party in which you can fit better, but it's bad for the good
working of the system: the governments are supported by composite
coalitions, and there's a lack of stability. The solution seems to reduce
the number of the parties, but if you think well, it's a curb to democracy.
Working democracies give few choices to the people.
> The strength of these democracies comes not from the electoral process
> but from the accountability institutions and from a free press.
free from..... ?
> In all democracies, money, ambition , influence, popularity, good looks,
> debating skills, and gimmicks are the norm for reaching the highest
office.
> And upon assuming office the "supporters" demand their pound of flesh.
> A cycle of corruption builds up.It spreads to the institutions.
> Slow or fast, the system heads towards a functioning anarchy and
> when it comes to the crunch - its everyman for himself or join a
> mob - skinheads , brownshirts , brownshorts - the choice is yours.
>
Your words meet my fears, Bobby. The social level is invading the intellect.
Market is the current weapon: today they don't burn the books, they buy
writers and readers.
> So how do the most moral people reach the top of the political ladder?
> They dont. They dont want to. A moral person by definition is one
> who is free from ambition , greed and fear. One who seeks DQ. And DQ
> is available only to those who have stripped themselves naked of all
> baggage - of all ambition.
>
> A political paradox. The only resolution of this paradox is when moral
> people are FORCED to undertake this task. Forced by whom ? By the lesser
> morals ? A circle within a descending spiral.
>
You suddenly remind me of an Italian humorist and philosopher, Luciano De
Crescenzo. Once he was asked to find a solution for our electoral system and
he suggested the use of Stochastics.
Stochastics, he said, can help us in many activities. For example it's good
to calculate with a good approximation the area of an irregular shape: it's
enough to count how many rain drops fall on it, and to confront this number
with the number of rain drops which have fallen on a known regular shape,
during the same storm.
Applying the Stochastics to the electoral system, he suggested to fix a
minimal skill to lead a nation, so we can have hundred of thousands of
candidates. Then we can choose the leader by random. Is there something
more democratic (and market immune, I add) than randomness?
Forced by whom, you asked. What about randomness?
:-)
-----------------------------------
*** The color of money ***
ANDREAS:
> Marco and everybody,
>
> You are right - finally it comes down to money. Nobody on this planet can
> declare any independence from this.
>
> .... the value of money is the most important and most sophisticated pov
> measurable in terms of accountability - with recognition oriented on the
> surface. s/o thinking is giving the frame for manifesting all "important"
> povs around the money game.
[...]
> an
> expression/strengthening of this is ' Neo-liberalism '. Fascism and
> oppression today comes on velvet paws.
>
> So what shall we do ?
>
> Find a way to tell people what they give away/big corporate companies
steal
> from them. (like for example clean water / air / soil )
>
> actually I never thought I would write something like this.
>
I spent a lot on this last sentence. I also have this impression when I
re-read my recent anti-market words. I'd like to express a little warning
here: we must not equate the market to the EVIL itself, and fall in a
communist-like trap. Let's not forget how many advantages we gained. The
free market is the evil when it deals with arts, human rights, education,
philosophy, religion, science.... in one word, with all what's intellectual.
At the social level, it's a great pattern of value. The MOQ tells us it's
moral to control the level below, while it's impossible to destroy it. Tthe
free market is good for the society to dominate the biological level, and it
would be a mistake to eliminate it.
--------------------------------
*** The global village ***
ROGER:
> Socialism is an intellectually inspired social structure that sufferered
from
> the immaturity of the level at the time it was developed. It was based on
> Marxist dogma, which itself was lifted from Hegel's dialectic
philosophical
> history and Kant's trust of only rational thought. The problem with the
> intellectual concepts of the time is that they were mired in
misconceptions.
> Philosophy was still hopelessly dualistic, and science was still convinced
of
> the sanctity of absolute, discrete reality and determinism. If you build
a
> theory off bad assumptions, you usually get bad results. Socialism is
> certainly the poster child for 20th century good intentions and bad
results.
>
wise words, thanks Roger.
> What would a modern intellectual theory of the economy look like? Well,
it
> would include concepts drawn from the study of chaos, VALUE attractors,
> networks and indeterminism (a miniscule change can result in totally
> disparate outcomes). It would include the concepts of evolution -- which
now
> includes not just the competitive aspects of Darwin's big idea, it would
also
> include the cooperative aspects. It may also include many of the old
> classical concepts dating back to Adam Smith, Hegel and Newton, but these
> would be tempered by modern knowledge. In short, we would probably see
the
> competitive/cooperative/value driven/decentralized/networked economies
that
> are thriving worldwide.
>
mmm... I've doubts about "value driven" and "decentralized". Actually the
western economy is seen by many as a USA-centered economy, in which the only
value accepted is the dollar price.
> BACK TO MARCO:
>
> I think this is the source of my fears. It's not exactly about democracy,
> it's about the lack of chances. Democracy, capitalism, free market... they
> have been more dynamic than the Russian communism, but now there's the
risk
> they don't need anymore to be dynamic. In this sort of intellectual
> stagnation, the result could be another boring movie. In technicolor, full
> of lights and sounds, but poor of contents.
>
> ROGER ADDS:
> The point is that they do need to be dynamic. For my first dumb metaphor
of
> the month -- there may be only one current style of music being played,
but
> there are innumerable bands competing for space on the airwaves. Different
> economies and divisions within economies continue to compete to discover
the
> most dynamic, flexible, variable response. The most dynamic versions of
the
> most dynamic economic system are thriving, and according to the
evolutionary
> beliefs central to the MOQ, THEY WILL CONTINUE TO DOMINATE AND EVOLVE.
> Eventually new musical (economic) genres will surface.
>
Many groups and only one style is the end of music. I do prefer that all the
groups can choose, play... and "jam" many diverse genres. Who wrote on these
pages something like "Versatility is human, specialization is for insects" ?
In these days, the economic "genres" are going to reduce to only one....
> MARCO WROTE:
> "Could there be an intellectually guided society with an inherent concept
> of indefinite Dynamic Quality ?"
> ROGER:
> One of the learnings from the last century was that some things cannot be
> guided. Or should not be guided. Tjhis is now an intellectual theory.
Read
> "Out Of Control" by Paul Kelly (of Wired Magazine fame).
>
Right. Actually, "a concept of indefinite DQ" is like to say there's
something impossible to be known, that is, it's out of any control.
I want to clarify my passage about poverty:
> > Who are today the pariahs of the system? Communists? Religious?
> > Intellectuals? Idealists? No. The pariahs, the sinners are usually
> > poor people which have not been able to ride this crazy horse that is
> > the western model. Is there someone listening to them? Are we fighting
> > the tendency to throw them out of the window?
> ROGER:
> Free enterprise and democracy didn't create poverty, it inherited it. And
> with time, I am convinced it can HELP solve it. But the solution won't be
> painless or immediate. But to maximize dynamic complexity and evolutionary
> advancement it is clear that we need to extend opportunity to ALL.
Not only inherited, I guess (see below). However, to extend opportunity to
all is a good intellectual slogan but I don't see evidences that this is the
main purpose of our society. Differences are good if they are input for
dynamic enhancements, but today differences are in many case so huge that
too many people live a desperate condition in which no opportunity is left.
BO also asks for a clarification:
>
> Not to pick nits, but who are the poor in our welfare states? The
> bag ladies and gentlemen who sleep out may die loaded with
> money.The married couples with kids who demand fashionable
> clothes pay deerly for that, but is this poverty? These and many
> other groups may not be the market profiteurs who drive Ferraris
> and Porsches, but poor? There are truly beggars in the former
> Communist states, grotesquely compared to the conspicously rich.
> Perhaps this is what you have in mind Marco? In which case I
> agree.
>
The western economic system is the winner. Now, it pretends to invade the
whole world. It shouts that we are in a global village, no frontiers between
us. This is "true" when our companies want to sell American soft drinks,
Japanese cars or Italian clothes... but when we talk about the poverty of
South America, Africa, or Eastern Europe, suddenly the frontiers appear
again. "If THEY are poor, it's not OUR fault".
It's not fair to argue we just inherited their poverty. Let me say that we
created their poverty by creating our richness. Poverty is a relative
condition. The double problem of those populations is that they come from a
different culture, and they have no means to enter our culture. Now we are
on a vantage point, but this must be also an occasion to accept our duties.
If the village is one, we also must give our help for the solution.
Today the mission to solve the problem is highly delegated to the market. So
our kids play football with balls made by kids in Pakistan for one dollar a
day. Is it right? Can we wash our hands like Pilate?
Dear Roger, when we talk about the infinite social and intellectual chances
we have thanks to the new technologies, I hope we all remember that the 70%
of the population of this world have never seen a telephone. The material
poverty conditions the intellectual poverty. How can those populations
understand the western way of life? They are just attracted by our richness,
and a McDonald's cheeseburger is their dream....
-------------------------------------
*** Dreams, by the way... ***
BO:
> But have I - or anyone else - said anything about
> Marco's opening assertion about DREAMS?
Partly I had my answers. I reached this point: our modern concept of
democracy is not exactly like the etymological meaning of the word. The
first message from Richard (a pure democracy doesn't work), and the last one
from Jonathan (the value of democracy is empowering the minority) , show
well that democracy is not simply "the power of the people", rather is an
intellectual construction in which human rights are the foundation.
In this sense, democracy and socialism are not in opposition. The opposite
of democracy is totalitarianism. Every form of it, even the totalitarianism
of the majority. Rather, the opposite of socialism is the free-market (a
soft opposition, after the end of the Soviet Union). So we can have
democracies, or tyrannies, based upon socialism, upon neo-liberism, or upon
a mix of the two.
So the answer to one of my first questions ("Does the majority decide what's
good?") is "No". In our democracies, what's good is measured by a set of
intellectual patterns known as Human Rights. The journey to a definitive
acceptance of them is still long, however I'm optimistic.
To this point, the question is: Are they enough? Are they adequate to
control the intrusiveness of the very dynamic social values of the market
into the intellectual level ? IMO, No. The society has found new ways to
attack the intellect: as said, they don't burn books, they buy the writers.
And the human rights (as currently we intend them) can't do a lot.
We need a dynamic intellect to control the dynamic society. New ideas, a
change of scene. One example? Jonathan wrote:
> democracy gives a degree of acceptance to
> minority views, and even reinforces them in
> institutions like a parliamentary opposition
> (which may even include a state-funded shadow
> cabinet). We value opposing opinions and the
> dialogue between them so much that this
> is the basis of our legal system. Even though
> democracy largely accepts the majority view, we
> value minority opinions not because we think that
> they are right, but we have to consider the possibility
> that the majority might be wrong.
That's all right, but... will ever be possible to surpass the (SOMish?)
dichotomy majority/minority? What about a system in which there's no need to
catalogue people in minorities, a network of individuals, everyone unique
and proud to be different? In this utopia, the need of democracy (as we
intend it today) could be surpassed.
What is it ? a dream? a nightmare?
"We are such stuff as the dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded
with a sleep" (William Shakespeare)
--------------------
tks
Marco.
------- End of forwarded message -------
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