Pomona: Also I don't think you know how random selection works - a random selection of say 100 people isn't more or less likely to be representative of the general population, because to be random there would have to be the same 1/100 chance of being selected.
While I don't pretend to be a sampling expert, I am aware that a sample of around 1,200 of the electorate on the basis of randomness seems to give a pretty accurate measure of public opinion within a calculable estimate of the sampling error or the sample mean of roughly plus or minus three per cent. Of course there can be rogue samples, but my guess is that a random sample of 650 of the electorate without replacement would more accurately reflect their characteristics than prevailing systems in democratic states, probably. I'm not, by the way, advocating such a system.
To my mind the evils of capitalism are self-evident. That doesn't mean that anything we can come up with will automatically be better; that's a major lesson to take from the 20th century. What we can think about is direction. I think the medicine to ameliorate capitalism is democracy, applied to workplaces just as it is to nations. Now, you might well have checks and balances in a democratically run commercial organisation so people can't just vote themselves unfunded pay rises or dissolve the company, sell the assets and pocket the cash but maybe not - those sound a lot like how private equity operates but here people would be voting themselves out of a job.
That looks like a piece of the jigsaw that would fit in my Geoist fantasy. But in steps from here, from where we are, how does Bezos turn Amazon in to a workers' co-operative?
Arethosemyfeet To my mind the evils of capitalism are self-evident. That doesn't mean that anything we can come up with will automatically be better; that's a major lesson to take from the 20th century. What we can think about is direction
I strongly agree. Capitalism has proved successful at producing stuff, but has a tendency towards increasing economic inequality that is difficult to resist. I do, however, fear that counteractive measures are becoming increasingly difficult to impose as corporations circumvent the limitations of mere national jurisdictions- Sell, for example, and its lack of profits in the UK! Then there is the problem of climate change which calls into question the whole global structure of mass consumption. Sorry to sound such a pessimistic note.
Surely the real problem with capitalism is its inability to stop destroying the environment? That it has no mechanism for building this fatal, catastrophic cost into its processes? Unless and until it has that, it has to be treated as the death cult it really is, and an alternative developed now.
Surely the real problem with capitalism is its inability to stop destroying the environment? That it has no mechanism for building this fatal, catastrophic cost into its processes? Unless and until it has that, it has to be treated as the death cult it really is, and an alternative developed now.
My point is that it will have to be done by increments. Late stage capitalism is so fine tuned that you can plunge millions of people into poverty with the mere plan of a change in economic policy, if "the markets" deem it unworkable (that they were right in the case of Truss is largely coincidental).
ThunderBunk:Surely the real problem with capitalism is its inability to stop destroying the environment? That it has no mechanism for building this fatal, catastrophic cost into its processes? Unless and until it has that, it has to be treated as the death cult it really is, and an alternative developed now.
But destruction of the environment has not and is not unique to capitalism, is it? The claims of non-market economies is that they can out-produce capitalist societies and distribute the abundance more fairly. Or are you arguing that socialist economies are simply state capitalism? The 'death cult' of mass consumption seems to me universally popular, and dealing with it is a massive problem for policy-makers across the conventional political spectrum.
Surely the real problem with capitalism is its inability to stop destroying the environment? That it has no mechanism for building this fatal, catastrophic cost into its processes? Unless and until it has that, it has to be treated as the death cult it really is, and an alternative developed now.
My point is that it will have to be done by increments. Late stage capitalism is so fine tuned that you can plunge millions of people into poverty with the mere plan of a change in economic policy, if "the markets" deem it unworkable (that they were right in the case of Truss is largely coincidental).
But in that case it cannot be done by increments. If it is fine-tuned, moving incrementally will precisely cause the problems you describe. One would have to change the whole system by a long way, rapidly!
No. It means that your increments have to be below the sensitivity of the existing setup. You're boiling a frog, effectively.
OK... I am not completely convinced but let's say this could work... where are the increments going? What is the destination system towards which we should be trying to inch?
The individual steps may be so small as to pass unnoticed, but that creates two problems (at least). One is that changes that small take a long time to get anywhere - so if we're talking "inability to stop destroying the environment", can we get to net zero in 20 years by very small steps? The other problem is that there needs to be a plan, and the existence of that plan will create the market driven plunging nations into poverty effect we saw with the suggestions of stupid policies by Truss - you can boil a frog by slowly raising the temperature, but if you tell the frog that you're going to boil it then it'll leap from the pan.
@Sighthound what exactly do you mean by 'London and its corrupting influence'? Immigration? Diversity? Decent museums and galleries?
Also, why do you want to exclude those with dyslexia, dyscalculia etc from national politics? Aside from the fact that your proposal would almost certainly break disability law, being able to do well on an exam isn't how you measure intelligence. I also think it's important to have MPs from a range of backgrounds and education levels etc. The increase in professional politicians in Parliament has imo been damaging - there is a huge lack of diversity. People deserve to have MPs who really represent people like them.
I was thinking more of 'gentlemen's clubs' than any of the things you mention. Also the pernicious influence of the so-called think tanks that cluster there. I am very far from objecting to diversity, I think it is a positive thing. But London is too - London-centric. It's one of the things wrong with the UK, the common view that civilisation ends north of Watford Junction, while the Welsh, Scots and Irish are but barbarians with strange ideas. Remember, it is the United Kingdom of GB and NI, not, the Kingdom of Southern England.
I am sure it is possible for people with dyslexia, dyscalculia etc to grasp complex issues and many such people do, in fact, achieve degrees, even doctorates. I think it's a bit patronising to suggest they're not up to it.
My proposal is prompted by the abominable standard of our legislature. There are people in it I would literally not trust to run a whelk stall. If the country is to be governed properly we need people in the job with the necessary skills. Talking populist BS is not a sufficient qualification, IMO.
The problem with our 'system' is that Parliament is not just there to 'represent' us - it is primarily there to govern us. Government is a very serious business indeed and if it is to be done well, it requires (for want of a better word) professionals. This country has been abominably run for decades. What makes it worse is that the current generation of politicians are wedded to dogma and all manner of impractical nonsense, and reject the advice of experts at every opportunity, as they (like much of the population) 'know better'. This is the modern equivalent of having a particularly silly medieval king in charge, ruling inadvisedly on the basis of uncritical support from favourites. Such scenarios never end well.
No. It means that your increments have to be below the sensitivity of the existing setup. You're boiling a frog, effectively.
OK... I am not completely convinced but let's say this could work... where are the increments going? What is the destination system towards which we should be trying to inch?
I don't think we can say with certainty. "The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear." That's the second reason for incrementalism, to push a step at a time in the direction that offers the best hope, and to change and adapt as we see how it fares in practise. "Move fast and break things" only works if the things you're breaking are unimportant, or there is so little left to break that no harm is done.
The problem with our 'system' is that Parliament is not just there to 'represent' us - it is primarily there to govern us. Government is a very serious business indeed and if it is to be done well, it requires (for want of a better word) professionals. This country has been abominably run for decades. What makes it worse is that the current generation of politicians are wedded to dogma and all manner of impractical nonsense, and reject the advice of experts at every opportunity, as they (like much of the population) 'know better'. This is the modern equivalent of having a particularly silly medieval king in charge, ruling inadvisedly on the basis of uncritical support from favourites. Such scenarios never end well.
This. A million times this. When democracy rejects decent governement and reality, what the fuck do we do? Reality will still kill us, even if we vote against it. That is reality - whatever bullshit democracy may produce. Rome is burning, and all democracies can do is fiddle. This is the frivolousness of which democracy is so frequently accused. Turns out its detractors are right, and we are millimetres from the end of the road.
Forgive the double post, but there is a related point to be made. The progressive fastidiousness that will not engage with democracy until it is running to its liking, as it if were a product on a shelf, will destroy the world sooner than most think. We need to engage to get the system to work better right now, not wait until it does and reward it by "buying" it. It's not a product - and this is where capitalism is probably most damaging. It has convinced everyone, including progressives, that there is no alternative, when reality works on something closer to a co-operative model already, at least to the extent that it is shaped by those who engage, not by peanut galleries, however impeccable their intentions or credentials.
What makes it worse is that the current generation of politicians are wedded to dogma and all manner of impractical nonsense, and reject the advice of experts at every opportunity, as they (like much of the population) 'know better'.
I have been bemoaning the baleful influence of popular anti-intellectualism for some time now.
That's the second reason for incrementalism, to push a step at a time in the direction that offers the best hope
Hope for what? Whats the end goal, the desired state of humanity, the ultimate nirvana? It’s all very well sitting there and saying “what we have now is shit”, but this thread is specifically about what you think things should be like, and what we should replace the current shit with. Surely you can do better than “I don't think we can say with certainty“?
The argument in favour of incrementalism is that the experience of root and branch revolutions is not encouraging, to which the Russian experience of Communism, and Mao's Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution bear baleful witness. Even more instructive was Pol Pot's attempt to create a completely new society in Cambodia by eliminated the culture, assumptions, interests and knowledge of the past by murdering the educated and remnants of the old elites to create a tabula rasa of mindless citizens who only knew the grinding existence of rural life. Starting again from first principles is not easy and probably doomed to failure however one defines progress.
For incrementalists social and political change is not devoid of principles but also takes place within the context of a continuing cultural and historical narrative, and ruling is an art rather than a science which recognises the value of what works as well as the reform of what doesn't, and retains a realistic view of human nature that does not require altruism on the part of individuals and groups to succeed. Incrementalists would argue that their approach proves more enduring and successful than more revolutionary approaches and at significantly less human cost.
That's the second reason for incrementalism, to push a step at a time in the direction that offers the best hope
Hope for what? Whats the end goal, the desired state of humanity, the ultimate nirvana? It’s all very well sitting there and saying “what we have now is shit”, but this thread is specifically about what you think things should be like, and what we should replace the current shit with. Surely you can do better than “I don't think we can say with certainty“?
Enough to live on for everyone. Education for everyone to the level and in the field they are capable of, free at the point of delivery and funded collectively. Healthcare available swiftly and free at the point of need and funded collectively. Housing of sufficient quantity and quality that no-one experiences health issues as a result of their housing or the lack of it. The ability to make decisions about one's life to effect change e.g. having the time and resources to retrain for different work, social and legal structures that can accommodate both settled and itinerant lifestyles. Resource consumption that is sustainable for the foreseeable future and doesn't result in a loss of biodiversity.
That's the second reason for incrementalism, to push a step at a time in the direction that offers the best hope
Hope for what? Whats the end goal, the desired state of humanity, the ultimate nirvana? It’s all very well sitting there and saying “what we have now is shit”, but this thread is specifically about what you think things should be like, and what we should replace the current shit with. Surely you can do better than “I don't think we can say with certainty“?
Enough to live on for everyone. Education for everyone to the level and in the field they are capable of, free at the point of delivery and funded collectively. Healthcare available swiftly and free at the point of need and funded collectively. Housing of sufficient quantity and quality that no-one experiences health issues as a result of their housing or the lack of it. The ability to make decisions about one's life to effect change e.g. having the time and resources to retrain for different work, social and legal structures that can accommodate both settled and itinerant lifestyles. Resource consumption that is sustainable for the foreseeable future and doesn't result in a loss of biodiversity.
I hope for that too. Against experience. With full, rewilded, local democracy on up. With rent on all misappropriated commons. That's where the money comes from. Income is negligible.
@Sighthound most people don't belong to that kind of prestigious club (I assume that's the kind of gentleman's club you mean rather than just strip clubs) or think tanks - I would associate that more with the City specifically rather than simply 'London'. While I agree that London-centricism is harmful to the rest of the UK, and I apologise for assuming the worst of you, there is a kind of dog-whistling that can happen with disparaging mentions of London - similar to the way 'New York values' isn't simply talking about people who live in New York.
As a disabled person who has dyscalculia, it's not patronising to point out that intelligence doesn't necessarily equal doing well in formal exams and that there are many great potential MPs out there who would struggle with it. It's not suggesting that disabled people 'aren't up to it' but simply that formal examinations aren't the only way of assessing somebody's performance, and that allowing for other methods in addition to that is really key for disabled students. I agree that MPs should know the basic principles of macroeconomics etc, I take issue with the idea that formal exams are the only way to make sure of that. Even for neurotypical people it's not great pedagogy.
It's not incrementalism for marginalised people to want people like them in government and providing them with a voice in Parliament. I guess it would seem pointless if you can look at the HoC and see a lot of people who represent you and your interests, but for disabled people in particular at the moment we are seen as invisible at best and disposable at worst by the government. Why is it generally agreed that having more women MPs would be good, but not having more disabled MPs? We are not a small group of people.
Okay.... so if we are going for incrementalism, deliberately working within the parameters which are to some extent set for us historically and culturally, then shouldn't we be saying: "well, capitalism is part of that historical inheritance, so basically we are sticking with that but adjusting it to try to get closer to the goals expressed by @Arethosemyfeet "? Whereas @ThunderBunk says: "no, capitalism is a death-cult, there is no way of reforming it, we need to find an alternative"?
On the other hand @ThunderBunk says with regard to politics that we have to engage with non-ideal systems in order to achieve reform. So are you saying @ThunderBunk that our current politics is less fundamentally corrupt than our current economics - we can legitimately engage with the imperfect political structures, but the economic structures are too systematically evil to work with?
Yes there's a paradox there I will admit. What I am saying is that the current economic structure is so profoundly flawed and is the basis of a crisis which will destroy our ecosystem in a generation or two unless a solution is put into place NOW (no time for incrementalism - the world is literally on fire, so comfort is not available). Therefore, as politics is the only means of causing action, engagement, with its attendant compromises, is required there because reality is uncompromising.
The time for incremental changes to the system to ensure we have a habitable planet for the future was when we first knew for certain that burning fossil fuels was creating a problem - that would have been in the 1960s, possibly earlier (depends on how much "certainty" is required).
We now have two decades for developed nations to stabilise emissions (ie: reach net zero, if not go over that to be drawing down more carbon than we emit), with less developed nations maybe a decade behind that. That means in effect an immediate end to building any new power stations that use fossil fuels, and an immediate start to reducing output from existing power stations. It means an immediate end to new buildings that use gas, oil or coal for heating and cooking, with an immediate programme of retrofitting existing buildings to provide alternative heating and cooking. No new fossil fuel extraction (whether conventional or not) with production from existing fields run down.
We have two alternatives. Change radically now of our own choice. Or, change radically in 2-3 decades when the environment (or the poor who have been totally screwed over by the system) forces us to do that. The second option comes with billions of people dead before their time.
Do we have 2 decades just to stabilise emissions (presumably thereby averting environmental catastrophe), or is it 2 decades before environmental catastrophe causes billions of deaths?
It seems to me that if the former is true then the environmental catastrophe must be much further off, or if the latter is true then reaching net zero after the environmental catastrophe has already happened feels kinda pointless.
That's the second reason for incrementalism, to push a step at a time in the direction that offers the best hope
Hope for what? Whats the end goal, the desired state of humanity, the ultimate nirvana? It’s all very well sitting there and saying “what we have now is shit”, but this thread is specifically about what you think things should be like, and what we should replace the current shit with. Surely you can do better than “I don't think we can say with certainty“?
Enough to live on for everyone. Education for everyone to the level and in the field they are capable of, free at the point of delivery and funded collectively. Healthcare available swiftly and free at the point of need and funded collectively. Housing of sufficient quantity and quality that no-one experiences health issues as a result of their housing or the lack of it. The ability to make decisions about one's life to effect change e.g. having the time and resources to retrain for different work, social and legal structures that can accommodate both settled and itinerant lifestyles. Resource consumption that is sustainable for the foreseeable future and doesn't result in a loss of biodiversity.
That last item renders all the others impossible, unless there’s a major reduction in the population.
That's the second reason for incrementalism, to push a step at a time in the direction that offers the best hope
Hope for what? Whats the end goal, the desired state of humanity, the ultimate nirvana? It’s all very well sitting there and saying “what we have now is shit”, but this thread is specifically about what you think things should be like, and what we should replace the current shit with. Surely you can do better than “I don't think we can say with certainty“?
Enough to live on for everyone. Education for everyone to the level and in the field they are capable of, free at the point of delivery and funded collectively. Healthcare available swiftly and free at the point of need and funded collectively. Housing of sufficient quantity and quality that no-one experiences health issues as a result of their housing or the lack of it. The ability to make decisions about one's life to effect change e.g. having the time and resources to retrain for different work, social and legal structures that can accommodate both settled and itinerant lifestyles. Resource consumption that is sustainable for the foreseeable future and doesn't result in a loss of biodiversity.
That last item renders all the others impossible, unless there’s a major reduction in the population.
With current technology, perhaps, but we can do better than we are.
Do we have 2 decades just to stabilise emissions (presumably thereby averting environmental catastrophe), or is it 2 decades before environmental catastrophe causes billions of deaths?
It seems to me that if the former is true then the environmental catastrophe must be much further off, or if the latter is true then reaching net zero after the environmental catastrophe has already happened feels kinda pointless.
Two decades to stabilise (or better) emissions to give us a good (ie 50:50 ish) chance of keeping average temperature rises below 1.5C - if we miss the target then that 1.5C+ temperature rise is effectively unavoidable (excluding not even postulated technology that can draw billions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere) even though it'll be several decades more before the world warms that much. If the feedback systems were fast enough to see the impact of our current actions in a couple of years then it would be a lot easier to convince people of the need to act - the current impacts were predicted 20-30 years ago, and governments and businesses didn't listen because it was "all computer models" and they demanded facts, those same models (or rather, improved versions thereof) are predicting what failing to act now will do in 20-30y time and it's not good (and, the predictions beyond that are terrifying for our grandchildren). The Paris agreement is already way behind schedule, and I'm not seeing any major national governments doing anything about it - and, most big business isn't any better.
Much as I detest the Chinese government I think there is at least a possibility that they might at some stage have both the inclination and the ability to reach net zero.
Hope for what? Whats the end goal, the desired state of humanity, the ultimate nirvana? It’s all very well sitting there and saying “what we have now is shit”, but this thread is specifically about what you think things should be like, and what we should replace the current shit with. Surely you can do better than “I don't think we can say with certainty“?
I suppose some variant on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It seems to me they are qualities that can be recognised by their absence.
The main question would be what sort of liberty we want. I think there are three aspects under which liberty is desirable. The first is the absence of negative coercion: negative coercion hurts the people coerced so you don't want it to happen if you can avoid it. The second is the positive ability to do what makes one happy. The third is that autonomy and self-direction are goods in themselves. The purely libertarian absence of negative government coercion does not achieve points two and three (people who have no money and are tied into exploitative contracts aren't doing what makes them happy and don't have autonomy). And unless you have a model of human nature in which everyone is a rational sociopath we're not talking about the liberty of atomic individuals for whom other people feature only as means to self-satisfaction or boundaries not to be transgressed.
So that's another question, which is what do we think human beings are. Are they atomic individuals who rationally seek to maximise their utility or are they reasonable social animals? I suppose that matters in identifying the obstacles to happiness and well-being in a society.
There are probably people in China and India saying "if we get to net zero in a couple of decades and the US and Europe do not get near it, it will all be a waste of time and effort". And, with some justification as the contribution to carbon emissions by China and India are dwarfed by the contributions of the US and Europe (2020 values: US 416b tonnes, EU (28 nations) 368b tonnes, China 235b tonnes, India 54b tonnes - if those are weighted per capita then the US/EU moves even further ahead).
We, Britain first of course, are the carbon imperialists bar none and must make amends. Must repent, be contrite, humble, apologetic, restitutory. Starting with our own people of course.
There are probably people in China and India saying "if we get to net zero in a couple of decades and the US and Europe do not get near it, it will all be a waste of time and effort". And, with some justification as the contribution to carbon emissions by China and India are dwarfed by the contributions of the US and Europe (2020 values: US 416b tonnes, EU (28 nations) 368b tonnes, China 235b tonnes, India 54b tonnes - if those are weighted per capita then the US/EU moves even further ahead).
The main question would be what sort of liberty we want. I think there are three aspects under which liberty is desirable. The first is the absence of negative coercion: negative coercion hurts the people coerced so you don't want it to happen if you can avoid it. The second is the positive ability to do what makes one happy. The third is that autonomy and self-direction are goods in themselves. The purely libertarian absence of negative government coercion does not achieve points two and three (people who have no money and are tied into exploitative contracts aren't doing what makes them happy and don't have autonomy).
Is there a means of achieving 2 and 3 without infringing on 1? Or for that matter, achieving 2 without infringing on either 1 or 3?
There are probably people in China and India saying "if we get to net zero in a couple of decades and the US and Europe do not get near it, it will all be a waste of time and effort". And, with some justification as the contribution to carbon emissions by China and India are dwarfed by the contributions of the US and Europe (2020 values: US 416b tonnes, EU (28 nations) 368b tonnes, China 235b tonnes, India 54b tonnes - if those are weighted per capita then the US/EU moves even further ahead).
There are probably people in China and India saying "if we get to net zero in a couple of decades and the US and Europe do not get near it, it will all be a waste of time and effort". And, with some justification as the contribution to carbon emissions by China and India are dwarfed by the contributions of the US and Europe (2020 values: US 416b tonnes, EU (28 nations) 368b tonnes, China 235b tonnes, India 54b tonnes - if those are weighted per capita then the US/EU moves even further ahead).
There are probably people in China and India saying "if we get to net zero in a couple of decades and the US and Europe do not get near it, it will all be a waste of time and effort". And, with some justification as the contribution to carbon emissions by China and India are dwarfed by the contributions of the US and Europe (2020 values: US 416b tonnes, EU (28 nations) 368b tonnes, China 235b tonnes, India 54b tonnes - if those are weighted per capita then the US/EU moves even further ahead).
Dafyd: The main question would be what sort of liberty we want. I think there are three aspects under which liberty is desirable. The first is the absence of negative coercion: negative coercion hurts the people coerced so you don't want it to happen if you can avoid it. The second is the positive ability to do what makes one happy. The third is that autonomy and self-direction are goods in themselves.
Respecting the desired objectives of society and liberty, coercion, and the like I tend towards Thomas Hobbes, who recognised that humans by nature are competitive and that without restraint their pursuit of happiness or whatever will lead to conflict and the impossibility of what passes for civilised society. Whether I would go along all the way with Hobbes' solution, I'm not sure, but I'm convinced that regulation is essential to the good life. The trick, of course, is to minimise the level of force to sustain it, hopefully by general agreement as to what is acceptable. As to the desired overall objective of society, I reject the hedonistic. pursuit of happiness in favour of justice: rendering to each his or her due. The Greeks have it.
As to the desired overall objective of society, I reject the hedonistic. pursuit of happiness in favour of justice: rendering to each his or her due.
How would you define "his or her due"? There are many different perspectives on that seemingly simple concept, from the notion that all people are due an equal amount as they are all of equal worth to the notion that people are due only what they can earn in a free marketplace and if they cannot or will not do so then they are due nothing.
The main question would be what sort of liberty we want. I think there are three aspects under which liberty is desirable. The first is the absence of negative coercion: negative coercion hurts the people coerced so you don't want it to happen if you can avoid it. The second is the positive ability to do what makes one happy. The third is that autonomy and self-direction are goods in themselves. The purely libertarian absence of negative government coercion does not achieve points two and three (people who have no money and are tied into exploitative contracts aren't doing what makes them happy and don't have autonomy).
Is there a means of achieving 2 and 3 without infringing on 1? Or for that matter, achieving 2 without infringing on either 1 or 3?
I think it is possible, but unlikely, and getting there from here requires something like the social promotion of self-knowledge, humility and love. But in reality we can't get there completely. People gain these qualities through life experience, so the young will be the young. They can be educated and encouraged, and perhaps punished, but we are so very far from this ideal.
We, Britain first of course, are the carbon imperialists bar none and must make amends. Must repent, be contrite, humble, apologetic, restitutory. Starting with our own people of course.
I'd like to see some evidence of this statement. It strikes me, at first blush, as the inverse of British patriotism, putting Britain instead at the centre of the world's problems. I think it is far too Anglo-centric, but let's see if there is any evidentiary support.
As to the desired overall objective of society, I reject the hedonistic. pursuit of happiness in favour of justice: rendering to each his or her due. The Greeks have it.
According to Aristotle the Greeks believed that everyone's aim in life is eudaimonia, usually translated happiness, and the only difference is what different people think it consists in. Now, eudaimonia is not for many Greeks pleasure or the state of being generally pleased (*), which is the most common modern meaning of the English happiness. So the term is sometimes translated as blessedness or fulfilment. But happiness can still be used in the older meaning. I think that is the meaning used in pursuit of happiness.
As for, rendering to each his due, what is the due of those who deserve well? If it's not those things that make for happiness, in the broad sense, what is the point of it? Saying that the objective of society is justice is to endorse the sin of the social worker: "we are all here to help others; what those others are here for God only knows."
(*) It was for the Epicureans, although they had a rather austere conception of pleasure.
The main question would be what sort of liberty we want. I think there are three aspects under which liberty is desirable. The first is the absence of negative coercion: negative coercion hurts the people coerced so you don't want it to happen if you can avoid it. The second is the positive ability to do what makes one happy. The third is that autonomy and self-direction are goods in themselves.
Is there a means of achieving 2 and 3 without infringing on 1? Or for that matter, achieving 2 without infringing on either 1 or 3?
Is there a method of achieving 1 without infringing on 1? The problem of people using their freedom from constraint to infringe on other people's negative liberty is I think the basic problem.
In general, in modern society in which a lot of wealth exists purely as computer records redistribution without negative coercion seems to me really quite easy. (When I talk about negative coercion being bad I mean the aspects that would be bad even if they were done with no view to altering behaviour: pain, imprisonment, ostracism, etc.)
Marvin the Martian: How would you define "his or her due"?
A very fair question to which there is no simple answer. Perhaps it is best approached rather than definitively answered through the context in which it was originally raised: the Greek city state, especially the polis of Athens. Aristotle in expressing the view that "man is by nature a political animal" was indicating that social living was natural, not an artificial construct, and that for a citizen to live the good life as an individual it had to be realised within a system of duties and responsibilities to the social whole. At the same time, however, Aristotle and Plato recognised that it was important that the city needed to be properly structured to optimise public and private good: hence the sort of questions on justice and virtue raised by Socrates, problems that remain to be resolved ever since. In our modern democratic context a focus on what constitutes justice between individuals and groups, IMO, ought to be the object of political discourse.
For me the problem with libertarianism is that it sees society as antithetical, inhibiting of, hostile to individual maturity and fulfilment: denying, in other words, the fundamental social nature of human beings. Furthermore, I find the notion that the promotion of an unrestricted pursuit of selfishness, masquerading as happiness, shows a lack of realism about human nature. It is a recipe for anarchy that frustrates the general happiness and economic prosperity it claims to promote, even for most of those who most benefit. Capitalism may be a good way of organising the economy but its tendency towards destructive anarchy, financial crashes, needs to be curtailed by regulation. In my view the end of libertarianism is fascism, where might is right.
Thus, while I recognise that my position leaves the structure of the social order and distribution of rewards a matter for debate and variation, I would contend it is sociologically and psychologically based on much firmer foundations that those of libertarian approaches. I don't claim any originality for my viewpoint, which merely recognises the greater wisdom on the ancients.
When I talk about negative coercion being bad I mean the aspects that would be bad even if they were done with no view to altering behaviour: pain, imprisonment, ostracism, etc.
Removal of assets leaves a person in the same position as someone who never had those assets. So if they're ending up with greater wealth than the median in their society then either the society as a whole is not one we want to aim for, or I find it hard to say that it's serious mistreatment.
We're not talking about unpredictable stripping of assets outwith the rule of law.
Perhaps it is best approached rather than definitively answered through the context in which it was originally raised: the Greek city state, especially the polis of Athens.
What works in a relatively monocultural society of a few hundred thousand people will not necessarily work in a multicultural society of several million.
Marvin the Martian: What works in a relatively monocultural society of a few hundred thousand people will not necessarily work in a multicultural society of several million.
That was why my response was less than prescriptive. I would, however, wish to stand by my position that the classical approach, which recognises that humans living in society is natural and that the focus of any reforming political discourse should focus on justice, is far better and more convincing than the libertarian approach, which regards society as a malign inconvenience and the single-minded pursuit of happiness i.e. individual self-interest as the object of political endeavour. Quite why large-scale multicultural societies should find the classical approach irrelevant I find difficult to understand. Indeed, questions of social justice seems pretty central to most of the critical political questions of our time.
Comments
While I don't pretend to be a sampling expert, I am aware that a sample of around 1,200 of the electorate on the basis of randomness seems to give a pretty accurate measure of public opinion within a calculable estimate of the sampling error or the sample mean of roughly plus or minus three per cent. Of course there can be rogue samples, but my guess is that a random sample of 650 of the electorate without replacement would more accurately reflect their characteristics than prevailing systems in democratic states, probably. I'm not, by the way, advocating such a system.
That looks like a piece of the jigsaw that would fit in my Geoist fantasy. But in steps from here, from where we are, how does Bezos turn Amazon in to a workers' co-operative?
I strongly agree. Capitalism has proved successful at producing stuff, but has a tendency towards increasing economic inequality that is difficult to resist. I do, however, fear that counteractive measures are becoming increasingly difficult to impose as corporations circumvent the limitations of mere national jurisdictions- Sell, for example, and its lack of profits in the UK! Then there is the problem of climate change which calls into question the whole global structure of mass consumption. Sorry to sound such a pessimistic note.
My point is that it will have to be done by increments. Late stage capitalism is so fine tuned that you can plunge millions of people into poverty with the mere plan of a change in economic policy, if "the markets" deem it unworkable (that they were right in the case of Truss is largely coincidental).
But destruction of the environment has not and is not unique to capitalism, is it? The claims of non-market economies is that they can out-produce capitalist societies and distribute the abundance more fairly. Or are you arguing that socialist economies are simply state capitalism? The 'death cult' of mass consumption seems to me universally popular, and dealing with it is a massive problem for policy-makers across the conventional political spectrum.
But in that case it cannot be done by increments. If it is fine-tuned, moving incrementally will precisely cause the problems you describe. One would have to change the whole system by a long way, rapidly!
OK... I am not completely convinced but let's say this could work... where are the increments going? What is the destination system towards which we should be trying to inch?
I was thinking more of 'gentlemen's clubs' than any of the things you mention. Also the pernicious influence of the so-called think tanks that cluster there. I am very far from objecting to diversity, I think it is a positive thing. But London is too - London-centric. It's one of the things wrong with the UK, the common view that civilisation ends north of Watford Junction, while the Welsh, Scots and Irish are but barbarians with strange ideas. Remember, it is the United Kingdom of GB and NI, not, the Kingdom of Southern England.
I am sure it is possible for people with dyslexia, dyscalculia etc to grasp complex issues and many such people do, in fact, achieve degrees, even doctorates. I think it's a bit patronising to suggest they're not up to it.
My proposal is prompted by the abominable standard of our legislature. There are people in it I would literally not trust to run a whelk stall. If the country is to be governed properly we need people in the job with the necessary skills. Talking populist BS is not a sufficient qualification, IMO.
The problem with our 'system' is that Parliament is not just there to 'represent' us - it is primarily there to govern us. Government is a very serious business indeed and if it is to be done well, it requires (for want of a better word) professionals. This country has been abominably run for decades. What makes it worse is that the current generation of politicians are wedded to dogma and all manner of impractical nonsense, and reject the advice of experts at every opportunity, as they (like much of the population) 'know better'. This is the modern equivalent of having a particularly silly medieval king in charge, ruling inadvisedly on the basis of uncritical support from favourites. Such scenarios never end well.
I don't think we can say with certainty. "The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear." That's the second reason for incrementalism, to push a step at a time in the direction that offers the best hope, and to change and adapt as we see how it fares in practise. "Move fast and break things" only works if the things you're breaking are unimportant, or there is so little left to break that no harm is done.
The problem with our 'system' is that Parliament is not just there to 'represent' us - it is primarily there to govern us. Government is a very serious business indeed and if it is to be done well, it requires (for want of a better word) professionals. This country has been abominably run for decades. What makes it worse is that the current generation of politicians are wedded to dogma and all manner of impractical nonsense, and reject the advice of experts at every opportunity, as they (like much of the population) 'know better'. This is the modern equivalent of having a particularly silly medieval king in charge, ruling inadvisedly on the basis of uncritical support from favourites. Such scenarios never end well.
This. A million times this. When democracy rejects decent governement and reality, what the fuck do we do? Reality will still kill us, even if we vote against it. That is reality - whatever bullshit democracy may produce. Rome is burning, and all democracies can do is fiddle. This is the frivolousness of which democracy is so frequently accused. Turns out its detractors are right, and we are millimetres from the end of the road.
I have been bemoaning the baleful influence of popular anti-intellectualism for some time now.
Hope for what? Whats the end goal, the desired state of humanity, the ultimate nirvana? It’s all very well sitting there and saying “what we have now is shit”, but this thread is specifically about what you think things should be like, and what we should replace the current shit with. Surely you can do better than “I don't think we can say with certainty“?
For incrementalists social and political change is not devoid of principles but also takes place within the context of a continuing cultural and historical narrative, and ruling is an art rather than a science which recognises the value of what works as well as the reform of what doesn't, and retains a realistic view of human nature that does not require altruism on the part of individuals and groups to succeed. Incrementalists would argue that their approach proves more enduring and successful than more revolutionary approaches and at significantly less human cost.
Enough to live on for everyone. Education for everyone to the level and in the field they are capable of, free at the point of delivery and funded collectively. Healthcare available swiftly and free at the point of need and funded collectively. Housing of sufficient quantity and quality that no-one experiences health issues as a result of their housing or the lack of it. The ability to make decisions about one's life to effect change e.g. having the time and resources to retrain for different work, social and legal structures that can accommodate both settled and itinerant lifestyles. Resource consumption that is sustainable for the foreseeable future and doesn't result in a loss of biodiversity.
I hope for that too. Against experience. With full, rewilded, local democracy on up. With rent on all misappropriated commons. That's where the money comes from. Income is negligible.
As a disabled person who has dyscalculia, it's not patronising to point out that intelligence doesn't necessarily equal doing well in formal exams and that there are many great potential MPs out there who would struggle with it. It's not suggesting that disabled people 'aren't up to it' but simply that formal examinations aren't the only way of assessing somebody's performance, and that allowing for other methods in addition to that is really key for disabled students. I agree that MPs should know the basic principles of macroeconomics etc, I take issue with the idea that formal exams are the only way to make sure of that. Even for neurotypical people it's not great pedagogy.
It's not incrementalism for marginalised people to want people like them in government and providing them with a voice in Parliament. I guess it would seem pointless if you can look at the HoC and see a lot of people who represent you and your interests, but for disabled people in particular at the moment we are seen as invisible at best and disposable at worst by the government. Why is it generally agreed that having more women MPs would be good, but not having more disabled MPs? We are not a small group of people.
On the other hand @ThunderBunk says with regard to politics that we have to engage with non-ideal systems in order to achieve reform. So are you saying @ThunderBunk that our current politics is less fundamentally corrupt than our current economics - we can legitimately engage with the imperfect political structures, but the economic structures are too systematically evil to work with?
We now have two decades for developed nations to stabilise emissions (ie: reach net zero, if not go over that to be drawing down more carbon than we emit), with less developed nations maybe a decade behind that. That means in effect an immediate end to building any new power stations that use fossil fuels, and an immediate start to reducing output from existing power stations. It means an immediate end to new buildings that use gas, oil or coal for heating and cooking, with an immediate programme of retrofitting existing buildings to provide alternative heating and cooking. No new fossil fuel extraction (whether conventional or not) with production from existing fields run down.
We have two alternatives. Change radically now of our own choice. Or, change radically in 2-3 decades when the environment (or the poor who have been totally screwed over by the system) forces us to do that. The second option comes with billions of people dead before their time.
It seems to me that if the former is true then the environmental catastrophe must be much further off, or if the latter is true then reaching net zero after the environmental catastrophe has already happened feels kinda pointless.
That last item renders all the others impossible, unless there’s a major reduction in the population.
With current technology, perhaps, but we can do better than we are.
One of the best ways to convince them is to show it can be done.
The main question would be what sort of liberty we want. I think there are three aspects under which liberty is desirable. The first is the absence of negative coercion: negative coercion hurts the people coerced so you don't want it to happen if you can avoid it. The second is the positive ability to do what makes one happy. The third is that autonomy and self-direction are goods in themselves. The purely libertarian absence of negative government coercion does not achieve points two and three (people who have no money and are tied into exploitative contracts aren't doing what makes them happy and don't have autonomy). And unless you have a model of human nature in which everyone is a rational sociopath we're not talking about the liberty of atomic individuals for whom other people feature only as means to self-satisfaction or boundaries not to be transgressed.
So that's another question, which is what do we think human beings are. Are they atomic individuals who rationally seek to maximise their utility or are they reasonable social animals? I suppose that matters in identifying the obstacles to happiness and well-being in a society.
Do you think that this article is accurate ?
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2317274-china-is-building-more-than-half-of-the-worlds-new-coal-power-plants/
Deleted duplicate quote. BroJames, Purgatory Host
Is there a means of achieving 2 and 3 without infringing on 1? Or for that matter, achieving 2 without infringing on either 1 or 3?
Is your understanding of it?
Yes, unless you can show me where my understanding is wrong.
That all depends what it is.
Respecting the desired objectives of society and liberty, coercion, and the like I tend towards Thomas Hobbes, who recognised that humans by nature are competitive and that without restraint their pursuit of happiness or whatever will lead to conflict and the impossibility of what passes for civilised society. Whether I would go along all the way with Hobbes' solution, I'm not sure, but I'm convinced that regulation is essential to the good life. The trick, of course, is to minimise the level of force to sustain it, hopefully by general agreement as to what is acceptable. As to the desired overall objective of society, I reject the hedonistic. pursuit of happiness in favour of justice: rendering to each his or her due. The Greeks have it.
How would you define "his or her due"? There are many different perspectives on that seemingly simple concept, from the notion that all people are due an equal amount as they are all of equal worth to the notion that people are due only what they can earn in a free marketplace and if they cannot or will not do so then they are due nothing.
I think it is possible, but unlikely, and getting there from here requires something like the social promotion of self-knowledge, humility and love. But in reality we can't get there completely. People gain these qualities through life experience, so the young will be the young. They can be educated and encouraged, and perhaps punished, but we are so very far from this ideal.
I'd like to see some evidence of this statement. It strikes me, at first blush, as the inverse of British patriotism, putting Britain instead at the centre of the world's problems. I think it is far too Anglo-centric, but let's see if there is any evidentiary support.
As for, rendering to each his due, what is the due of those who deserve well? If it's not those things that make for happiness, in the broad sense, what is the point of it? Saying that the objective of society is justice is to endorse the sin of the social worker: "we are all here to help others; what those others are here for God only knows."
(*) It was for the Epicureans, although they had a rather austere conception of pleasure.
In general, in modern society in which a lot of wealth exists purely as computer records redistribution without negative coercion seems to me really quite easy. (When I talk about negative coercion being bad I mean the aspects that would be bad even if they were done with no view to altering behaviour: pain, imprisonment, ostracism, etc.)
A very fair question to which there is no simple answer. Perhaps it is best approached rather than definitively answered through the context in which it was originally raised: the Greek city state, especially the polis of Athens. Aristotle in expressing the view that "man is by nature a political animal" was indicating that social living was natural, not an artificial construct, and that for a citizen to live the good life as an individual it had to be realised within a system of duties and responsibilities to the social whole. At the same time, however, Aristotle and Plato recognised that it was important that the city needed to be properly structured to optimise public and private good: hence the sort of questions on justice and virtue raised by Socrates, problems that remain to be resolved ever since. In our modern democratic context a focus on what constitutes justice between individuals and groups, IMO, ought to be the object of political discourse.
For me the problem with libertarianism is that it sees society as antithetical, inhibiting of, hostile to individual maturity and fulfilment: denying, in other words, the fundamental social nature of human beings. Furthermore, I find the notion that the promotion of an unrestricted pursuit of selfishness, masquerading as happiness, shows a lack of realism about human nature. It is a recipe for anarchy that frustrates the general happiness and economic prosperity it claims to promote, even for most of those who most benefit. Capitalism may be a good way of organising the economy but its tendency towards destructive anarchy, financial crashes, needs to be curtailed by regulation. In my view the end of libertarianism is fascism, where might is right.
Thus, while I recognise that my position leaves the structure of the social order and distribution of rewards a matter for debate and variation, I would contend it is sociologically and psychologically based on much firmer foundations that those of libertarian approaches. I don't claim any originality for my viewpoint, which merely recognises the greater wisdom on the ancients.
But not removal of assets or stripping of wealth?
We're not talking about unpredictable stripping of assets outwith the rule of law.
What works in a relatively monocultural society of a few hundred thousand people will not necessarily work in a multicultural society of several million.
That was why my response was less than prescriptive. I would, however, wish to stand by my position that the classical approach, which recognises that humans living in society is natural and that the focus of any reforming political discourse should focus on justice, is far better and more convincing than the libertarian approach, which regards society as a malign inconvenience and the single-minded pursuit of happiness i.e. individual self-interest as the object of political endeavour. Quite why large-scale multicultural societies should find the classical approach irrelevant I find difficult to understand. Indeed, questions of social justice seems pretty central to most of the critical political questions of our time.