Political Parties, Empires, Countries and City States
Sat, 2007-08-18 17:15
#1
Political Parties, Empires, Countries and City States
Sat, 2007-08-18 17:15
#2
I have been thinking and questioning myself about organized states. I have been wondering at what point in time, does a political party, empire or country begins to become corrupted and moral decay starts to set in?
Does the size of the country’s population or the economical and military power contribute to a downfall of organization?
Would the humans be better off with small city states, where like minded people could group together?
My other thoughts lately have been why do I need to be apart of a country or community, why do I need a leader or elected official in charge of me?
More to follow, I am in one of those strange moods tonight.
Sat, 2007-08-18 19:56
#3
huge question
here's a start to part 1:
The seeds of moral decay are present in any organization from its inception. The very process of organizing a number of people (from 2 to a million) entails compromise; each member of the founding body brings to it an element of self-inetrest. Plus, the basic ideal or structure is bound to have some design-flaws. Plus, all the persons involved in organizing are the products of a declining culture (otherwise a new organization wouldn't be necessary), with a lot of its preconceptions and biases already in their heads.
So: the basic idea, the historical setting and the size of the organization will give you a pretty good guess as to [i]the way[/i] in which it's likely to become corrupted. (I assume as inevitable, given human history, that every organization [i]will[/i] become corrupted.)
Imminent breakdown is usually apparent when the leadership flouts both the letter and spirit of the constitution. There will have been many signs of corruption long before that, but the organization can go on functioning in spite of them, so long as a majority of the citizens respect the original rules - or at least pretend to. At this point, reform can still save it. Once the majority fails to uphold the rules and accepts a leadership that fails to uphold the rules, the organization is doomed.
Sun, 2007-08-19 05:49
#4
In the time of the city states of Ancient Greece, corruption and moral decay-- however one wants to define it-- were constant issues.
As we know from more sensational histories of Republican and Imperial Rome, we see a political organization where the leadership was almost always corrupt, and the politically participating people constantly yearned for the Old Rome of Virtue.
That never existed.
Yet, the Republic trundled along for a few hundred years, and the Empire meandered about for more than half a millenium before the organization in the west, went kaput.
And we still live with the echoes.
The movie "V for Vendetta" spoke to this, about how institutions break down over time and have to be changed. I think it's when we venerate them for the fact that they are institutions, rather than the service they have provided and provide to society.
I would rather we could change them instead of actually blowing them up, but, well, one of the qualities of institutions is a pathological resistance to change. Hence the need for explosives and guillotines from time to time, regretfully.
In our Canadian example, and building on a few things Nonsuch said, I too, am grappling with a few issues you mention, Webgear.
Those who have suffered through my posts on Canadian politics know of my constant references to the Family Compact. Originally, the Family Compact existed before the legislative reforms of Elgin. They taxed farmers and urbanites under the guise of government, and funneled that money to their friends and family.
A few boy scout types, whipped up by the rhetoric of King attempted a sort of democratic coup. The Red Coats put an efficient end to that, and for good measure Francis Bond Head was sent over to engage the populace in a tory riegn of terror, where those naive farmers who believed in better government were hunted down like vermin and hung, imprisoned and/or exported to Van Deiman's Land or Australia, so that they could better suffer before they died.
And Elgin's reforms, while they did stop the tory terror against democratic reformers, did little to actually change the Family Compact. And while the circle of friends and family is much broader today than it was in the 1800's, it is still very much the driving force in Canadian politics.
Sun, 2007-08-19 06:05
#5
(Deep breath here)
But Canada moved along quite nicely, in fact, since the 1850's under this system.
I believe, and of course I would, that the Canadian people have been courageous and industrious enough to carry the overburden of a privileged class siphoning off the fruits of our labour. So we built the railroad in spite of Macdonald's corruption. We carved an identity in blood in WWI in spite of efforts to inflict the Canadian Ross rifle on the troops. Every major accomplishment has had it's sordid understory.
But we could cope.
I guess when we can't cope, that's when things break down.
I mean, we all know about the madness of Calligula, but outside the small circle of leadership, the Roman Empire was hardly effected.
In terms of Canada, I just wonder where we are right now. For me, the Arar affair has kind of crystallized my thoughts.
Being brought up on the propaganda-- and I guess that's what it was-- about Canadians fighting for freedom in WWII, I can't shake it. Nazi Germany was bad, and needed to be defeated at the expense of human lives.
But yet, we see the RCMP and CSIS using Gestapo tactics, not to mention 17th century witch hunt tactics and our institutions do nothing.
Silence is approval.
If we were serious about taking the torch from failing hands, what should we be doing right now?
Sun, 2007-08-19 09:51
#6
Tommy
Thanks for the extra long reply.
Some my family supported William Lyon Mackenzie’s rebellion in York.
“If we were serious about taking the torch from failing hands, what should we be doing right now?”
I am not sure if anything could be done. I believe that nations and organizations have gotten to large to be affected by minor rebellions of unhappy people.
I am not even sure if people should be ruled by others, if a person truly wants to be free, why would he want to be controlled by a government or organization that usually does not do what he wants them to do?
Sun, 2007-08-19 10:27
#7
My opinion is that new political parties attract the extreme. Like the Reform party had some pretty extreme right members when they started out. They've managed to clean house and get rid of some of the radicals.
They all tend to end up in the middle or pretty close to it.
I like the way the NWT does it. Consensus government. You vote for the guy, not the party. But it can also mean that there is a lack of continuity and direction by the government. But the NWT is small enough that you can do it. I think Switzerland does that too?
Sun, 2007-08-19 21:25
#8
quote:
I am not even sure if people should be ruled by others, if a person truly wants to be free, why would he want to be controlled by a government or organization that usually does not do what he wants them to do?
That's the more advanced part of the question.
Of course people should* not be ruled by others. But that's how human societies exist. In order to be free of society and heirarchy, we'd need to reproduce only once every ten years, instead of spawning the way we actually do, have a thousand acres each, and meet others of our species only once a decade, to trade and mate.... Can't be done, this side of the neuclear haulocaust.
Some people [i]want[/i] to rule. Some want it so badly, they'll do anything, anything at all, to gain power. The people who don't want to rule can't identify with this drive, can't fathom it, and can't defend against it. In between, there are the mercenaries: people who don't want to rule, but will do anything that they're paid to do - anything, from riding their horses through a crowd of protesters to impaling enemies of the ruling class. And it doesn't help that quite a few in this category enjoy their work.
*should
a word with lots of luggage; might want to search that luggage before taking "should" on board.
1234567:
quote:
I like the way the NWT does it. Consensus government. You vote for the guy, not the party. But it can also mean that there is a lack of continuity and direction by the government. But the NWT is small enough that you can do it. I think Switzerland does that too?
Direct democracy is the form of government that most appeals to me. Only because anarchy doesn't work. Trouble is, direct democracy works only in relatively small numbers. Over 100,00, it gets complicated; over a million, it becomes ridiculously difficult to keep track of. Only the Swiss can be Swiss. But i think it's worth a try in Canada; we just might manage it.
Alternatively, city-states, or something like, might be the best way to go. We'd need to break the country down to manageable regions, each with an autonomous local government. Whole lot of problems in the process, but the result would probably serve the citizenry better than the present system. Biggest problem: living next door to a mega-state with a huge army and an evil agenda. Better put off political re-organization until after said mega-state breaks down.
I can picture a post-US North America of 579 independent regions, all amicably trading with one another, where individual citizens could travel and relocate with a minimum of beurocratic fuss. It can happen....
[ 19 August 2007: Message edited by: nonsuch ]
Mon, 2007-08-20 11:40
#9
“Some people want to rule. Some want it so badly, they'll do anything, anything at all, to gain power.”
Is there a difference between leadership, managers and rulers?
“Alternatively, city-states, or something like, might be the best way to go. We'd need to break the country down to manageable regions, each with an autonomous local government.”
I also believe city-states would be the best choice, unless a great leader comes along and unites the country however great leaders do not last forever.
Mon, 2007-08-20 14:37
#10
quote:
Biggest problem: living next door to a mega-state with a huge army and an evil agenda. Better put off political re-organization until after said mega-state breaks down.
The Greek city states sent their neighboring mega states huge army packing a couple of times.
Remember Thermapalooza?
Anywho.
quote:
I am not even sure if people should be ruled by others, if a person truly wants to be free, why would he want to be controlled by a government or organization that usually does not do what he wants them to do?
Well, people in the 1700's really grappled with this question, Rousseau in particular, I think. I say "I think" because I found him difficult to read. Very tedious. But I guess if you want to get to the nub of the matter, some very tedious ground work has to be laid. I leave Rousseau for better and more patient minds than mine.
I think we have to look to what kind of animal humans are, first. It's safe to say that our early survival was enhanced by social cooperation.
De Sade thought that the range of a person's liberty and freedom extended only as far as it was checked by another's freedom and liberty. A fine model-- for animals like bears that are hardly social at all.
But we are not animals that have individual territories that we patrol and extend as far as the next bigger bear.
We've evolved to understand that certain rights or prerogatives have to be surrendered in order to achieve things of higher value to that particular individual.
Whether that trade off is worth it or not varies from individual to individual, and is under constant re-evaluation.
In Tommy Paine's (me, not the real one) perfect world, our democratic representatives in a large organization would be chosen by lot, as some Greek city states tried.
We sort of operate like this, to a limited extent now. We all know politicians tailor their policy to public opinion polls. Why not cut out the middle men? A large enough body selected by lot would reflect the views of the society at large, I'd say, 19 times out of 20, with a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.
You'd end up with a legislative body that is a truer representation of the people.
And you'd still have your constitution to stop the tyranny of the majority. But you'd have to have checks and balances to make sure the civil service did not in fact end up running the country.
Not that we really mind when they do now, but I am speaking in the hypothetical.
For smaller organizations, like city states, a mix of direct democracy and elected representatives would work best, I think.
It all hinges on how much bother the populace wants to go to. In a municipal setting, it's quite possible for the vast majority of citizens to have a good grasp of the issues facing a city.
Nationally, it's really not possible for [i]all [/i] citizens to be sufficiently expert at [i]all[/i] the issues facing a nation like Canada.
So we surrender our "say", and trust that the people we elect are when they make decisions on our behalf.
So.
What's the general voter turn out in your home town?
eeeep.
Mon, 2007-08-20 15:49
#11
Frustrated Mess
quote:
have been thinking and questioning myself about organized states. I have been wondering at what point in time, does a political party, empire or country begins to become corrupted and moral decay starts to set in?
The moment it is no longer self-sustaining and must expand its borders or go further afield to extract the resources it requires to sustain itself. At that point, it becomes expansionist and will employ whatever means are necessary to compel others to provide it with resources.
Mon, 2007-08-20 17:35
#12
It appears that larger nations creates corruption and moral decay faster than a smaller city-state. Would it not be in our best interests to create small communities of like minded individuals?
Mon, 2007-08-20 19:48
#13
Webgear:
quote:
Is there a difference between leadership, managers and rulers?
Yes.
A leader is an individual who has the best interests of the citizenry as hir main principle. (That's not to say s/he can't be wrong.) Usually, the leader comes forward in response to a threat or crisis facing the community; puts hir private life on 'hold' in order to save the community.
A manager is someone who contracts to supervise a project involving many people with various specialized skills, or to oversee the day-to-day functioning of an organization. For hem, it's a job, to be done as efficiently as possible; no huge investment of emotional capital; no personal sacrifice.
A ruler is someone who wants to push other people around, be served and adulated and to have more luxuries that everyone else.
quote:
I also believe city-states would be the best choice, unless a great leader comes along and unites the country however great leaders do not last forever.
Nor do the conditions which require a great leader. Competent managers would suffice in normal (peacetime, non-emergency) situations. That's why the civil service is our mainstay. Ideologies come and go; PM's, good and bad, come and go; the post office, hospitals and road-crews keep working.
quote:
It appears that larger nations creates corruption and moral decay faster than a smaller city-state. Would it not be in our best interests to create small communities of like minded individuals?
I don't know about faster. The speed of decay seems to be more a question of economics than size. Certainly easier: the bigger and richer an organization, the easier it is to cook the books, manufacture news, hide corruption.
Communities of like-minded individuals have been formed, and have functioned reasonably well for anywhere from a year to several decades. But they were very small. Imagine trying to reorganize 300+ million people into like-minded communities. Do we all move? Do we bring our not-so-like-minded spouses, siblings, parents, children? Do we trade houses with a family of other-minded people in the preferred region? What industry, what farming, what natural resources, what trade will sustain the4 new communities? The logistics are mind-boggling.
Tommy_Paine:
quote:
The Greek city states sent their neighboring mega states huge army packing a couple of times.
Yes, but were eventually defeated, subjugated and subsumed. There is only so much you can do, only so many young people you can sacrifice, before superior force prevails.
I think the mega-states have to fall apart on their own; they won't be defeated by valiant little nations.
[ 20 August 2007: Message edited by: nonsuch ]
Tue, 2007-08-21 08:11
#14
quote:
Originally posted by Webgear:
[b]It appears that larger nations creates corruption and moral decay faster than a smaller city-state. Would it not be in our best interests to create small communities of like minded individuals?[/b]
There's a school of thought in Political Science, in the International Relations discipline, that we are politically evolving towards a new medievalism where the city state is the dominant form of government.
Currently I think we only have two examples of city states - Singapore and The Vatican - and neither provides us with an exemplary model for democratic decision-making. However, with the decline of of rural agriculturally-based societies in the west, the amalgamation of municipalities into mega-cities, and the demand from these megacities for more control over the tax revenue they produce, I can see how we might be heading in the city state direction.
Increasingly, there seems to be less of a need for a national identity than there is for regional identities unifited by economic interest. The EU is a pretty good example of this. Globalization spells the end of the homogeneous nation-state political unit that defines itself by its dominant race/religion/culture.
The US - ever-resistant to sociopolitical change exterted by external forces - still seeks to homogenize all who would live in that country by enforcing, at every opportunity, an increasingly irrelevant and alienating set of so-called "American Values" that will somehow transform all who reside in the United States (and all those affected by US foreign policy) into right-thinking, Republican-voting Evangelist Christians.
The only way that the illusion of this homogenous set of values and ideals that form an outmoded and irrelevant form of nationalism can be maintained is through threats, bullying, censorship and public shaming. The fact that it's not working, with wholly disastrous consequences for millions of people, should spell the end of this kind of idiocy. One would hope.
Tue, 2007-08-21 13:07
#15
quote:
Originally posted by Rebecca West:
[b]Currently I think we only have two examples of city states - Singapore and The Vatican - and neither provides us with an exemplary model for democratic decision-making.
[/b]
These two city-states may not be exemplary models for democratic decision-making however what are there living conditions like? Are their citizens happy, educated, feed and housed?
Do we need a democratic elected government if our well being and needs are looked after?
Tue, 2007-08-21 14:08
#16
quote:
Do we need a democratic elected government if our well being and needs are looked after?
Some postulate that the enlightened despot might be the best form of government. But then, in theory almost any form of government looks good on paper.
The way the medieval world was supposed to work like this. A good lord would have husbanded his land and serfs in such a way that looked after both. One would think it should have worked pretty well. But it's telling that it had to rely so much on force, and ignorance of the underlings.
Would you like to be my serf, Webgear? Do you think I know what is best for you, even if I was being altruistic?
How could I possibly know better than you what is best for you?
Probably the most corrupt forms of government we have in Canada are municipal governments, so I don't think smaller organizations are intrinsically less corrupt than larger ones.
Corruption flourishes in organizations where good people are inclined to be willfully blind, willfully deaf, and willfully mute. And take a look at the level of participation in our municipal politics. Low voter turn out, few know the names of their city council representative or even the ward or district they live in.
That's why we have corruption, because people do not inform themselves or participate.
One wonders if it is the fault of the people or the politicians. Julius Ceasar used to despise men he called "fish ponders". Those citizens who withdrew from political service and tended to their gardens. But who could blame the "fish ponders" when the political stakes could have you ending up with your head on a pike?
In our national example in Canada, sometimes I blame [i]us[/i] for events like Arar, or ad scam. But then, when parliament and the civil service is designed to squelch democratic participation so the corrupt can have the field to themselves, maybe the blame lies with them.
Tue, 2007-08-21 14:40
#17
Frustrated Mess
quote:
These two city-states may not be exemplary models for democratic decision-making however what are there living conditions like? Are their citizens happy, educated, feed and housed?
Say they are. In what manner is their happiness, living conditions, housing, and food maintained? Where does it come from?
quote:
However, with the decline of of rural agriculturally-based societies in the west, the amalgamation of municipalities into mega-cities, and the demand from these megacities for more control over the tax revenue they produce, I can see how we might be heading in the city state direction.
This is not a Western phenomenon but a global one. Throughout the world subsistence and small scale farmers, the family farm when we wish to wax nostalgic or raise sympathy, are being replaced by plantations for export crops while the farmers and their families are driven off the land and into ghettos surrounding cities. Beijing, it was reported today, has grown to just short of 18 million people.
Food has become a commodity and fresh water is becoming scarce. How will these cities feed and water themselves in the decades to come with the additional burdens of climate change and energy scarcity? How will democracy function in cities teeming with the poor driven from the country side?
From where will the resources these cities will require to heat, clothe, and house these urban billions come from? How will it get there?
Whose rights will take precedent when it comes to scarce resources? The poor occupying the lands from whence the resources are extracted, or the rich West so full of entitlement and privilege?
Imagine yourself a leader of a city state on the edge of starvation, surrounded by food of global corporate collective farms and earmarked for city states far away. What would you do?
Tue, 2007-08-21 16:12
#18
Tommy
You are correct, we are to blame for our current government because people do not inform themselves or participate. Both the citizen and the government are at fault.
What is the difference between being a serf and having a government that does not do as I desire?
Frustrated Mess
I am not sure of the answer to your question(s) perhaps if the government made small scale farms productive and a desirable profession then we could do away large scale corporate farms.
I would be interested in being a farmer if I had half a million dollars to buy the land and some basic farm equipment.
Tue, 2007-08-21 16:17
#19
Frustrated Mess
quote:
perhaps if the government made small scale farms productive
It is not that small farms are not productive but that they can't compete against economies of scale which demand ever growing markets and resources.
The issue for any "community" is what happens when population outgrows the community's ability to be self-sufficient? Where does it go? Outward. And what if someone is already there? We have played this game already and we are running out of game board.
Tue, 2007-08-21 16:27
#20
Bad choice of words on using the term “productive”, I meant something else but that does not matter now.
So what is the answer to a community's ability to be self-sufficient? And how does the answer relate to corruption in large governments and nations?
I would thought that smaller nations could be more self-sufficient if properly managed.
Tue, 2007-08-21 16:53
#21
quote:
What is the difference between being a serf and having a government that does not do as I desire?
By degrees, my life is so far better than a Russian or English or French serf's from history as to make comparison outlandish.
But by principle, none.
Tue, 2007-08-21 16:57
#22
You can always move to the north and live out in the bush on the land. Work from when you get up until you go to bed. Long winter nights to spend reading or if you have a sweetie....
Move off the grid for a while. It really is an amazing way to live. No news, no doom, no gloom just good ole mother nature.
Tue, 2007-08-21 17:24
#23
Tommy
So I guess if we had city-states, we could align ourselves with people of our own ideologies. There will always be serfs, household retainers and lords; I would like to limit the number of them.
1234567
I have lived off the grid. It was an enjoyable experience.
Tue, 2007-08-21 19:00
#24
quote:
So what is the answer to a community's ability to be self-sufficient?
Self-control. Once everyone has enough, stop. Stop expanding; stop wanting more stuff; stop making more people than you have room and resources for.
But then, you still have no control of your neighbours' desire for your stuff, and if there are more of them, they will probably get it.
quote:
And how does the answer relate to corruption in large governments and nations?
Some people always want more, and those are the people most likely to become the rulers - unless the citizenry is vigilant. Usually, it isn't. When things go well for a while, we become complacent; we forget to pay attention... and then it's too late.
Wed, 2007-08-22 14:14
#25
It is a vicious circle I guess. I believe that smaller nations would be more easily kept in line from being corruptible or hostile to other nations. I suppose in the end it will always be a power struggle.
Wed, 2009-07-01 19:23
#26
Tommy
I was wondering if you still feel the same way today?
Thu, 2009-07-02 01:27
#27
One thing's for sure. Capitalism's got to go.
Thu, 2009-07-02 02:07
#28
What shall we replace it with?
No man can be free when is he forced to summit to another man.
Thu, 2009-07-02 08:55
#29
Lard Tunderin Jeezus
No one has mentioned the need for an honest and ethical media. How is the third estate (the common people) supposed to know its own interests without an ability to communicate and come to consensus? To some degree the internet offers us a new vehicle for this purpose, but it is very fragmented, and prone to creating an information overload.
Is it conceivable to bring the media back into the hands of the people? How does one prevent corporate interests from dominating the press and airwaves?
Thu, 2009-07-02 08:57
#30
Lard Tunderin Jeezus
You can always move to the north and live out in the bush on the land. Work from when you get up until you go to bed. Long winter nights to spend reading or if you have a sweetie....Move off the grid for a while. It really is an amazing way to live. No news, no doom, no gloom just good ole mother nature.
Unfortunately, if even one-tenth of us try this, we'll destroy mother nature.
Wed, 2009-09-16 21:49
#31
With the current political activities occurring in the country I thought this would be a good thread to reactivate.
I believe there is no political force that I should follow, however I am bounded to Canadian law due to being born in this country. I do not feel like a free man.
Wed, 2009-09-16 23:29
#32
I have been thinking and questioning myself about organized states. I have been wondering at what point in time, does a political party, empire or country begins to become corrupted and moral decay starts to set in?Does the size of the country’s population or the economical and military power contribute to a downfall of organization?
Would the humans be better off with small city states, where like minded people could group together?
My other thoughts lately have been why do I need to be apart of a country or community, why do I need a leader or elected official in charge of me?
More to follow, I am in one of those strange moods tonight.
We could live in a world where there are no leaders because every individual is a leader.
Wed, 2009-09-16 23:39
#33
Is there a difference between leadership, managers and rulers?
No. They're all psychopaths.
Wed, 2009-09-16 23:57
#34
It is a vicious circle I guess. I believe that smaller nations would be more easily kept in line from being corruptible or hostile to other nations. I suppose in the end it will always be a power struggle.
Remember, Ancient Rome started out as a city state.
Wed, 2009-09-16 23:59
#35
With the current political activities occurring in the country I thought this would be a good thread to reactivate.
I believe there is no political force that I should follow, however I am bounded to Canadian law due to being born in this country. I do not feel like a free man.
To hell with it. Become an anarchist.
Fri, 2009-09-18 17:27
#36
I believe there is no political force that I should follow, however I am bounded to Canadian law due to being born in this country. I do not feel like a free man.
Well, that's one aspect of oppression. However, rebelling against one's own moral compass is the only way I can think of to be truly free.
Sat, 2009-09-19 00:13
#37
I believe there is no political force that I should follow, however I am bounded to Canadian law due to being born in this country. I do not feel like a free man.
Well, that's one aspect of oppression. However, rebelling against one's own moral compass is the only way I can think of to be truly free.
That depends on whether it is one's own genuine moral compass or the values of the state indoctrinated into one. I would say definitely rebel against the state's values.
Mon, 2009-09-21 00:38
#38
I believe there is no political force that I should follow, however I am bounded to Canadian law due to being born in this country. I do not feel like a free man.
Well, that's one aspect of oppression. However, rebelling against one's own moral compass is the only way I can think of to be truly free.
That depends on whether it is one's own genuine moral compass or the values of the state indoctrinated into one. I would say definitely rebel against the state's values.
Wow..., and here's another example of oppression. lol
Mon, 2009-09-21 00:51
#39
Frmsldr
If you conduct a successful rebellion against the state, do you not become the state?
Anarchy is likely the best option available, unless we are conducting or inciting harm against others.
You bring up an interesting concept in a number of threads, morality. Who decides what is ethical or moral?
Mon, 2009-09-21 03:55
#40
Frmsldr
If you conduct a successful rebellion against the state, do you not become the state?
No. You become master in your own house: "A world where there are no leaders because every person is a leader."
Anarchy is likely the best option available, unless we are conducting or inciting harm against others.
Absolutely. Revolution or revolutionary (radical) change does not have to be violent.
You bring up an interesting concept in a number of threads, morality. Who decides what is ethical or moral?
You do (the individual) following (at minimum) the "Do no harm" principle enunciated above: Act to either maximize the greatest benefit to the greatest number. Failing that, at least make every effort to do no harm or the least harm to the least number.
Mon, 2009-09-21 14:02
#41
I have been thinking and questioning myself about organized states. I have been wondering at what point in time, does a political party, empire or country begins to become corrupted and moral decay starts to set in?Does the size of the country’s population or the economical and military power contribute to a downfall of organization?
Would the humans be better off with small city states, where like minded people could group together?
I'm not so sure that civilized society necessarily has to lead to enslavement of the people by repressive laws declaring people as private property (old world idea and not very efficient) or by indebtedness(the modern form of slavery). Warfiteering has been a problem for a long time. Apparently, US economist [url=http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson09252008.html]Michael Hudson[/url] has researched history and discovered that the fall of more than Rome was due to the refusal of those in power to wipe the debt slate clean, so to speak. Hudson's research points to debt overhead as single-most glaring reason for felling Roman empire, as well as Ottoman and Persia toward the end of the 19th century. Hudson says about the former Middle Eastern empires:
I've also published a series of four colloquia by assyriologists and archaeologists describing how earlier, from about 2500 to perhaps 300 BC, Babylonian and other Near Eastern rulers kept their citizens free and preserved their landholdings by annulling personal and agrarian debts when they took the throne - a true "tax holiday" - or when economic or military conditions warranted a general Clean Slate. (The series was funded and published by Harvard's Peabody Museum and is now available from CDL Press.)These Clean Slates were adopted literally, almost word for word, in the Biblical Jubilee Year of Leviticus 25. Even the same Hebrew word, deror, was used for the Babylonian andurarum proclaimed by rulers of Hammurapi's dynasty from 2000 to 1600 BC. So it is remarkable to me that men claiming to be Christian leaders today should ignore the fact that in the very first sermon that Jesus gave, in Nazareth (Luke 4:14-30), he unrolled the scroll of Isaiah 61 and promised that he had come "to proclaim the Year of the Lord," the Jubilee Year. That was the literal "good news" that the Bible preached, as the Dead Sea scrolls have abundantly illustrated.
Mon, 2009-09-28 04:27
#42
I can picture a post-US North America of 579 independent regions, all amicably trading with one another, where individual citizens could travel and relocate with a minimum of beurocratic fuss. It can happen....
[ 19 August 2007: Message edited by: nonsuch ]
It could also end up like a larger version of Italy before unification - a bunch of independent city-states and regions all scheming against each other and going to war constantly.
Tue, 2009-09-29 18:55
#43
It could also end up like a larger version of Italy before unification - a bunch of independent city-states and regions all scheming against each other and going to war constantly.
I believe the scheming against, fighting and enslaving each other is a constant human characteristic as seen throughout history.
Almost all societies, political parties and countries have evolved into a corrupted power at some point of their existence.
Tue, 2010-09-21 13:29
#44
Global Grandiosity: America's 21st Century International Architecture
http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Global-Grandiosity-Americ-by-Rick-Roz...
"The psychiatric ailments that give rise to delusions of grandeur are chronic. They cannot be cured, only controlled. Left untreated the prognosis is poor, even terminal. When grandiosity seizes a player on the global stage, and its major one at that, the risk exists of the world being endangered by and consumed along with the megalomaniac should the scaffolding and his pharonic architecture collapse around his head..
'My Name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my Works, ye mighty and despair..'"
Tue, 2010-09-28 12:54
#45
Webgear -- We organize ourselves in such ways to facilitate and prolong our survival, as biological organisms who need to gather natural resources and as moral beings with common ideas and objectives.
It's not human organizations, or their sizes, that corrupt us. I think we're naturally susceptible to doing what we feel needs to be done to survive in particularly circumstances, which is to say deviating from our group's behavioural code, and all forms of human organization are based on this assumption. To avoid this, codes of accepted behaviour are set down at the formation of a group, and is usually open to future modifications.
Thu, 2010-09-30 11:22
#46
L J :"... we're naturally susceptible to doing what we feel needs to be done to survive in particularl circumstances..."
That had to be more easily accomplished in the time of smaller social groupings, clans and tribes, L J , where the "codes of accepted behaviour" tended to be severe.
At the moment, you can find heated debates about the tax rate at any political level, but only vague tut-tutting about human despoilation of our biosphere that threatens the continue existence of many life forms, including our own.
And when Cameron, the Ontario-born producer of the movie Avatar, was invited the other day to speak with FN people who are afraid to drink the water downstream from the Tar Patch, and with oil people and politicians in Calgary...he comes away shaking his head about a conundrum. So the world has been subjected to his very creative ideas about a fictional native people on another planet living with nature, and their reaction to similar forces of development, seen in Alberta...and he has bugger all to say about the real-life situation.
We learn :"Hollywood movie director James Cameron passed judgment on the oilsands on Wednesday in a verdict that was remarkably measured and reasonable and didn't once ..." And then he flies off in his private jet.
We do live in an escapist, make-believe world.
Thu, 2010-09-30 11:31
#47
George, can we talk about Can-Am capitalists, or are they off limits in this thread?
Thu, 2010-09-30 11:53
#48
GV -- I was referring to individual and selfish behaviour, or situational ethics, within a group whatever its size. Hence criminal and civil codes.
More to the topic of your post is this article.
Thu, 2010-09-30 12:37
#49
GV -- I was referring to individual and selfish behaviour, or situational ethics, within a group whatever its size. Hence criminal and civil codes.
More to the topic of your post is this article.
I tend to come at these questions from a sociological perspective, L J. And my limited knowledge of psychology (Skinnerian) not one on which I depend for an understanding of human behaviour. Herbert Mead's social psychology (symbolic interactionism), in which we take our cues from the reaction of others to our own behaviour (the "looking glass self") is one I fall back on...dated as it is by "modern" psychologists. And I'm too long out of the schoolroom (more than three decades) to try to catch up. :)
Thank you very much for that link to Gilbert. I am copying it now.
Thu, 2010-09-30 13:02
#50
Global Grandiosity: America's 21st Century International Architecture
http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Global-Grandiosity-Americ-by-Rick-Roz...
It is only in Clinton's detached world with its inflated sense of self-importance that she and fellow American federal officials can be seen as engaging the public both at home and abroad.
Mechanical glad-handing and other sterile mummeries of biennial and quadrennial elections campaigns - run by mammoth advertising and public relations firms paid with billions of dollars from special interests - and state-engineered photo opportunities in the capitals of other countries are what in fact is meant.
On September 8 Clinton demonstrated what she understands as public engagement. On a Wednesday, a workday for other Americans who pay her salary through their taxes, Clinton addressed those who truly pay attention to U.S. foreign policy and whose expectations must be met if one hopes to remain in office: The Council on Foreign Relations and other planning bodies of the permanent rather than the transient and fleeting elite of temporary officeholders. Groups whose members reflect and deepen each other's sense of omnipotence and grandiosity by using the map of the world as their private chessboard.
Rozoff is on the mark as usual. The world is run by a tiny group of megalomaniacal psychopaths and special interest groups buying western world governments.