The Democractic Manifesto

[Democracy Fanboy]

You call yourself democracy fanboy and have written a manifesto, but politics isn't your passion?

Quick! To the way back-pedalling machine!

My interest in politics has fluctuated. Back when I wrote that, I was much more passionate about it than I am today. Right now I'm more into anthropology (and I've honestly gotten A's in all the anthropology classes I've taken, both cultural and biological). I was mistaken to speak my mind on something I know little about.

[weemadando]

Akhlut put it best we're challenging you because you develop better through adversity, as long as you can accept criticism and challenges and not just shout "LALALA! CAN'T HEAR YOU!" and run off.

[Democracy Fanboy]

Akhlut put it best we're challenging you because you develop better through adversity, as long as you can accept criticism and challenges and not just shout "LALALA! CAN'T HEAR YOU!" and run off.

Honestly, I don't know how to counter their points, and I've lost interest in this stupid argument.

[Akhlut]

Honestly, I don't know how to counter their points, and I've lost interest in this stupid argument.

Well, if you've lost interest, there's not much we can do about that.

However, for future reference, just try to remember what argument/point you're trying to advance. It usually works best if you use a modified form of the scientific method where you use evidence to derive a position, rather than trying to pigeonhole evidence to fit a position. For instance, you can find reasonable arguments in favor of a moneyless society, though you'll need to address the basic human need/desire to root out freeloaders.

And, as I said, don't worry too much about blatant insults, that's just how the board culture developed. Most people usually don't mean the exceptionally harsh stuff (except Coffee, but he's an asshole anyway, as he'll be the first to admit), and there's a strong theme of trial by fire here.

[madd0ct0r]

Your inital post came across as a hit 'n run poster. I honestly didn't expect you to come back, let alone back down.

BUT

what is politics but not the application of anthropology?

Sorry we didn't all bend over in admiration, but somebody who's prepared to sit and work through 8000 words trying to explain their frustration with how crap the world is, that's a good place to start.

What are your political views nowadays?

[Democracy Fanboy]

^ Honestly, while I'm definitely progressive on most social and cultural issues and hate the Republicans with a passion, I'm rather undecided on fiscal and federal-vs-private questions.

[madd0ct0r]

well, as a blanket term, progressive should indicate you support a tax regime where the rich pay a higher percentage of their income, and this money is used to support a welfare safety net of some sort, be it a national health service, disability benefits or job seekers allowance.

federal vs private is a very good question, one that's not been settled yet.

simply defining yourself as 'against the republicans' is pretty limiting. Which of their policies do you disagree with? are there any you agree with?

[Democracy Fanboy]

well, as a blanket term, progressive should indicate you support a tax regime where the rich pay a higher percentage of their income, and this money is used to support a welfare safety net of some sort, be it a national health service, disability benefits or job seekers allowance.

If there had to be any kind of government, it would be one like that.

I guess that makes me a liberal.

[madd0ct0r]

liberals a funny word - means different things in the states and the rest of the world.

so you're a progressive. Now, lets look at drug legislation. Should Cannabis be legalised? Should smoking in public be allowed? is ecstasy ok? should an individual have the right to do what they want to themselves (and other consenting adults) ?

[Democracy Fanboy]

so you're a progressive. Now, lets look at drug legislation. Should Cannabis be legalised? Should smoking in public be allowed? is ecstasy ok? should an individual have the right to do what they want to themselves (and other consenting adults) ?

I don't think much about that particular issue, but yes to all of those except public smoking (since frankly that would be inconsiderate to some people).

[madd0ct0r]

ok - so then you accept the existence of certain intrinsic rights to self determination, and the correlated duties of not impinging on the rights of others. We move closer to the human rights act.

Now, is there a right to property included in that list? If I make a cooking spoon from freely available wood - do i have a right to keep it? Under what situations can it be morally taken from me?

[K. A. Pital]

Abolition of money sounds interesting. The rest I haven't yet digested.

[Panzersharkcat]

To be fair, barter as a system apparently never actually existed. Among hunter-gatherer groups and prior to actual money economies (which was apparently most of Medieval era and prior, as most people weren't actually handling money, especially outside of cities), people relied mostly on tit-for-tat trade systems along the lines of "I'll give you some product of my work now for future access to some of your goods," which would allow for relatively complex divisions of labor, but it would be a lot more difficult to manage in modern industrial economies. However, no one apparently had to directly trade apples for medical care, and then the doctor didn't have to trade apples for items more useful to him. Rather, you'd go to your healthcare provider, get medical care, and then at some point later in time, he'd call in a favor from you. It was basically a lot like dealing with extended family and friends groups (big surprise there, considering that's all it was, really). So, barter likely wouldn't make an appearance, because it's a pain in the ass for all involved; it'd likely turn into a huge morass of people owing favors to each other that are called in once the time is right. (concise source, who links to more indepth sources)

Not that that is necessarily a good thing, but it's not quite the same thing as a full-on barter economy.

Fair enough. It was an exaggerated example in my case, anyway. I believe something similar to what you described happened for a while in Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union, at least from what I remember from high school econ textbooks. If fgalkin or Stas Bush could confirm that, I'd be very grateful.

[K. A. Pital]

Barter trade sprung up after the collapse, but it still partly relied on money (including foreign currency). It wasn't working well anyway.

[Panzersharkcat]

Thank you. Anyway, I suppose I could put reading this on my to-do list if Democracy Fanboy still cares. It'd be far down on my list of priorities, but it'd be on there.

[Simon_Jester]

Abolition of money sounds interesting. The rest I haven't yet digested.

To abolish money safely I would think you would need something very close to what might be called 'true communism;' if you can't figure out how to implement that, then I question whether it's possible to have an economic system that works without some objective means of tracking who has and hasn't contributed to the system.

[K. A. Pital]

No, I just said it sounds interesting. I am (sort of) working on non-monetary systems with a degree goal in mind, but I don't know if I would ever have the opportunity to dedicate more time to it.

[Akhlut]

Abolition of money sounds interesting. The rest I haven't yet digested.

To abolish money safely I would think you would need something very close to what might be called 'true communism;' if you can't figure out how to implement that, then I question whether it's possible to have an economic system that works without some objective means of tracking who has and hasn't contributed to the system.

Well, currently, it might be possible with some sort of computer program and combination of RFID and timecard system that simply says you've done X amount of work without actually requiring currency to purchase items, merely show that you've worked and can thus access said items.

[Soontir C'boath]

Abolition of money sounds interesting. The rest I haven't yet digested.

To abolish money safely I would think you would need something very close to what might be called 'true communism;' if you can't figure out how to implement that, then I question whether it's possible to have an economic system that works without some objective means of tracking who has and hasn't contributed to the system.

Well, currently, it might be possible with some sort of computer program and combination of RFID and timecard system that simply says you've done X amount of work without actually requiring currency to purchase items, merely show that you've worked and can thus access said items.

Is all work being treated equal or will there be a value system to quantify them? If it's the former, then this seems pointless as everyone will just dither on being a janitor.

[K. A. Pital]

Why would you be a janitor if you'd rather do something else? Being a janitor is a type of work most people shun (and not just because it is not highly paid - in some places janitors do earn a lot). It is physically demanding and repetitive, mind-crushing I would say.

[Akhlut]

Is all work being treated equal or will there be a value system to quantify them? If it's the former, then this seems pointless as everyone will just dither on being a janitor.

That's a shitty argument and I suspect you already know that. Why do people do volunteer work when it doesn't garner them any material benefit? Why do people sink into enormous debt for medical school when they know it'll be years of labor and being stuck in aforementioned debt before getting fabulously wealthy? Especially those people who do that and then go work with Doctors Without Borders or work at the free clinics or otherwise do a lot of work for little pay? What about freelance artists who generally don't make enormous money? Or any other example of literally thousands of other careers?

It's not as simple as monetary benefit, too; prestige figures heavily in people's decisions (who would you rather date, a janitor or a scientist, even if they were paid identical salaries and got identical benefits?), as do other, intangible reasons. I, for instance, could, without too much additional labor on my part, get into a fairly lucrative career in the food science industry: I have a number of good contacts in the industry, I have a related degree, and I could do the work. However, I'm forsaking that for conservation work, which is not nearly as well paid because of the intangible idea that I think wildlife has an inherent value which is superior to the monetary compensation that I'd potentially earn in the food industry. So, I suspect that the switchover to a moneyless economy would see the strengthening of such intangibles for most people, as they would want to work more for what is important to them, rather than trying to simply earn more money as a shortcut for trying to increase personal well-being and self-satisfaction.

There's also other matters: regardless of the other aspects of this hypothetical moneyless society/economy, there will still be something like a job market (as in, there won't be an infinite number of janitorial jobs available for everyone to take, for instance), so gaming the system would be relatively difficult, as any job a person does take and does the minimum to get their "I did work" token or whatever metric/symbol of having done work will, by definition, have done enough work to get their resources/luxuries/whatever. So, even if you think to yourself, "man, I want to do the bare minimum to get by!" you're still doing useful labor for society as a whole. However, if too many people think like you do, all the jobs that would allow for you to do that would already be snatched up and you'd have to find an even more "real" real job.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, currently, it might be possible with some sort of computer program and combination of RFID and timecard system that simply says you've done X amount of work without actually requiring currency to purchase items, merely show that you've worked and can thus access said items.

Yes, but then all you'd really be doing is creating a system of electronic currency (which we've already got) denominated on the 'labor standard.' Not good enough, if the goal is really to abolish money.

[Akhlut]

Well, currently, it might be possible with some sort of computer program and combination of RFID and timecard system that simply says you've done X amount of work without actually requiring currency to purchase items, merely show that you've worked and can thus access said items.

Yes, but then all you'd really be doing is creating a system of electronic currency (which we've already got) denominated on the 'labor standard.' Not good enough, if the goal is really to abolish money.

I'm not sure if I was clear enough; all I was trying to say was that the system shows that you did work, not that you were given a certain number of tokens that can be used to purchase things. Simply a sort of labor record that isn't diminished by "purchasing" goods and services.

[Dooey Jo]

Who's going to define what constitutes "useful work", and why would a truly socialist economy need to keep track of such a thing? (Unless the original document, now deleted, advocated some sort of money-less capitalism, but that would of course be silly, as any other way of keeping track of expended labour time, would just be money in a clown suit.) If "useful work" can mean "anything, whatever, write a treatise of Star Wars vs. Star Trek, just don't sit on your ass all day", well people are going to do that anyway. If it means "produce necessities", there's simply not going to be enough of such jobs to make coercive measures necessary or probably even practical. Keep in mind that even in our current hilariously wasteful system, the majority do not have such jobs, and are driven further away from anything that would be useful in a socialist society as increases in productivity make them obsolete. As unemployment and purchasing power would be meaningless terms, there would be no horrible side effects to large increases in efficiency, so the amount of actually needed work to sustain society would be expected to decrease even faster.

[Soontir C'boath]

Why would you be a janitor if you'd rather do something else? Being a janitor is a type of work most people shun (and not just because it is not highly paid - in some places janitors do earn a lot). It is physically demanding and repetitive, mind-crushing I would say.

I should have instead said work in a position that is easy to do. Yes, most people probably do not want to become a janitor but I'll change my argument to suit it.

That's a shitty argument and I suspect you already know that. Why do people do volunteer work when it doesn't garner them any material benefit? Why do people sink into enormous debt for medical school when they know it'll be years of labor and being stuck in aforementioned debt before getting fabulously wealthy? Especially those people who do that and then go work with Doctors Without Borders or work at the free clinics or otherwise do a lot of work for little pay? What about freelance artists who generally don't make enormous money? Or any other example of literally thousands of other careers?

It's not as simple as monetary benefit, too; prestige figures heavily in people's decisions (who would you rather date, a janitor or a scientist, even if they were paid identical salaries and got identical benefits?), as do other, intangible reasons. I, for instance, could, without too much additional labor on my part, get into a fairly lucrative career in the food science industry: I have a number of good contacts in the industry, I have a related degree, and I could do the work. However, I'm forsaking that for conservation work, which is not nearly as well paid because of the intangible idea that I think wildlife has an inherent value which is superior to the monetary compensation that I'd potentially earn in the food industry. So, I suspect that the switchover to a moneyless economy would see the strengthening of such intangibles for most people, as they would want to work more for what is important to them, rather than trying to simply earn more money as a shortcut for trying to increase personal well-being and self-satisfaction.

There's also other matters: regardless of the other aspects of this hypothetical moneyless society/economy, there will still be something like a job market (as in, there won't be an infinite number of janitorial jobs available for everyone to take, for instance), so gaming the system would be relatively difficult, as any job a person does take and does the minimum to get their "I did work" token or whatever metric/symbol of having done work will, by definition, have done enough work to get their resources/luxuries/whatever. So, even if you think to yourself, "man, I want to do the bare minimum to get by!" you're still doing useful labor for society as a whole. However, if too many people think like you do, all the jobs that would allow for you to do that would already be snatched up and you'd have to find an even more "real" real job.

So after all these paragraphs, in the end, you do acknowledge that in this system, people can have easy jobs, and presumably since you didn't answer the question, take the same benefits as another person. Whether it gets saturated or not is irrelevant.
_________
What if a person's lot in life is to be a janitor (and they are needed so someone has to do it). Then what self-satisfaction or prestige can the person ever hope to receive?

Here I also ask again, is this person's benefits equal to another or not? If it's the former, then is it enough to justify this person's 'misery' of working 8 hours that he'd rather do somewhere else but can't?