By Glen Wallace
There was a famous labor conflict back in the 1800's between the workers of a steel mill and Andrew Carnegie, the owner of the mill. The striking workers actually locked the gates to the plant preventing any scabs or management from entering the plant to keep it running. Back then, no state or federal agency would come to the rescue of the ownership, sending in the national guard like they would today. Instead the owner had to fend for himself. In the case of this particular strike, Carnegie hired a gang of Pinkerton thugs to break up the strikers and get the gates open to clear the way for the scab replacement workers to come in and get the plant running again. Now, while all this was going on Carnegie, not wanting to soil his delicate bourgeoisie 'civilized' hands with the mess, had left his henchman Andrew Frick to organize and direct all the dirty work, while Carnegie was off in Europe on a hunting trip. Unfortunately the striking steelworkers were no match for the Pinkerton professional brutes. That was fortunate for Carnegie because for him to both hire new scabs and the Pinkertons' was an extremely expensive endeavor that he could not have possibly sustained financially for very long even for a man as wealthy as himself. Now looking back at those events of that strike I have to wonder if maybe the striking steel workers might have been successful had they employed a different strategy from what they employed of directly taking on the Pinkertons' when challenged. Had I been there in that place in time I would have advised the strikers to retreat as soon as the Pinkertons arrived and allow them to open the mill for the replacement workers to come in and start the plant up again. Then as soon as it appeared that Carnegie and the Pinkertons had succeeded and thus left, the strikers would come back to shut down the plant again. Of course Carnegie and Frick could have just turned around and hired the thugs to come back, but that would have resulted in another big bill that Carnegie would have had to have eaten. I suggest that it would have been much easier for the striking workers to maintain such a 'stick and move' pattern that would have slowly undermined Carnegie to the point were he would have been forced to capitulate and meet the strikers demands. I find it remarkable that the strikers back then were allowed to do as much as they did without government intervention as would happen today under similar circumstances. Today if a union tried anything similar, the National Guard would surely come out to break up the plant shut down. What should be clear from this is that the government has taken on the very same role that the Pinkertons took on during the steel mill site. The state, local and federal government has clearly become the protectors and advocates for the plutocrats at the expense of the proletarians interests. I like to think that I'm pretty clever to think up such a strategy that I believe would have been successful in such a historically famous event where a different strategy had failed. But here and now in the present day as I type this I try to think up strategies that might help advance the interests of today's prol's and 'I got nothing.' And I don't think it's that I had just a 'one hit wonder' strategy, it is that the doors of opportunity for common man to, in general, advance, have been strategically slammed shut by the plutocrats so that every possible move has already been thought up by them and has been blocked off to the proletariats.
Showing posts with label government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label government. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Thursday, April 18, 2013
The Illusion of Influence
By Glen Wallace
The illusion of influence by the populace has perpetuated the current flawed republican form of government. Had our government been in the form of a constitutional republic with appointed rather than elected governing officials the citizenry would have likely revolted a long time ago. But under a pseudo democracy as we have, the people tend to blame each other for the problems of the government. Which is understandable given the illusion of democracy makes people think that the electorate are the ones wielding the influence over the politicians that are deciding what laws are created that governs society. Constituents think all that needs to be done is sway their fellow citizens to vote another way. When that doesn't work, people get frustrated, but unfortunately they don't give up on the representative democracy system altogether. For some reason, for the vast majority, the populace never even considers the option of completely altering their fundamental form of governance. If only they realized that we are living under an appointed republic and not a democratic one, then the people would declare our government unacceptable. Instead, they just keep tilting at windmills thinking 'this time will be different' and all will be well if only their candidate will get elected to office.
Unfortunately, the illusion serves as useful fiction for those that are in power. It becomes much easier to manipulate the people when they think they are the ones in charge. Once the illusion is in place many different forms of manipulation become available that would be much less potent tools if the populace lost their sense of importance in running the country. I believe a certain degree of malaise and apathy would come over the constituents with respect to the day to day governance of the country if they didn't think they had a role to play in that regard. However that apathy would quickly be replaced with a sense of outrage if their material condition or freedoms were severely compromised. Such outrage could then easily evolve into a mob that could leverage its numbers and in a real act of influence, overthrow their dictator. But once the illusion is present then among other techniques of manipulation, perhaps none works better than the old divide and conquer technique whereby parties of different political persuasions are pitted against each other, thus distracted from the pillaging of the resources and freedoms. But the 'dance off' between the parties is as carefully orchestrated as a professional wrestling match. When the ruling elite like things just the way they are, they order a continual partisan stalemate with both sides so evenly matched that no resolution occurs and therefore no change happens with the matter at hand. However, if the powers decide they want something changed, like the enactment of a new free trade agreement, the powers order a bipartisan unity that insures that the agreement is passed. Never mind that such free trade agreements hamstring the peoples ability to leverage, through tariffs, the trade deficits that the US is continually experiencing . The interests of the masses, or the democratic majority, are not what matters in our so-called representative democracy.
Another case in point is the recent proposed legislation known as CISPA and SOPA. While many may think that the first round attempt to pass those laws failed because of a grassroots movement came together in protest against those bills, I doubt the general public had anything to do with the failure of the two bills. I believe those with influence, the large cap internet corporate behemoths such as Google, Amazon and Ebay protested and thus stopped the bills. In our society, the only hope the proletariat has is if their interests and the interests of those with real influence are one and the same.
In another case, back during the Clinton administration, I believe it was during his first term, all of a sudden there was this upswelling of a populist tax reform movement. It seemed every day there was all this talk and pressure to reform both the tax code and especially revenue enforcement in favor of the common man. It even got a great deal of national mainstream news coverage where the news would interview people who would give their horror stories of dealing with the IRS. But from my recollection this sudden movement occurred when the Democrats held control of not only the presidency but also congress and given that the Dems tend to be less inclined to be for tax reform, they took on the role of being the resistors to these reforms that predominantly the Republicans were putting forward. And so the true life narrative in this case played out that the Dems played the role of preventing any significant tax reforms to come out of this new tax movement. Now, fast forward to the George W Bush administration where I believe at least at some point during his tenure the Republicans had a significant amount of control of both the presidency and congress. So, wouldn't that have been a good time to revive the populist tax movement that sprung up during the Clinton administration? Well if there ever was the goal to help the masses with their taxation then that would have been a good time but that was never the goal. The brief tax reform movement during the Clinton administration was just a planned theater designed to reinforce the illusion of influence for the masses to think they started and brought to the public conscious the need to reform the system of tax collection for their fellow citizens. By making the movement so public with the help of the mainstream media which is in collusion with the powers to reinforce the illusion, the public had their mistaken belief in their political potency nicely reinforced. Look at all the power they seemed to have and look at how it was only because of those darn Democrats that nothing came of the movement. Of course the powers that were actually behind the sudden movement were counting on and weren't disappointed in the public's short term memory insuring that almost everyone would have forgotten the brief tax movement once the occasion came to pass where what had been seemingly the only obstacle, the Democrats hold on power, to success in reaching the goal of the movement, no longer existed. I didn't forget, but I think almost everyone else did.
One more example of the lack of influence by the common man over public policy in our supposed democracy is the demise of the trolly car system back in the 1950's. It was a perfectly good public transportation system that every one seemed to love to get around and also had recently been updated with new cars at the time of its dismantling. If the people were really the ones in charge then it must have been at their behest, demanding that the trolly cars be removed that caused the system to be brought almost entirely to a halt around the country all at the same time. One might think people despised those trolly cars because they were so quickly removed from service around the country. But that wasn't the case at all, from what I have heard from people who actually used the trolly cars when they were in service, the trolly cars were heavily utilized and enjoyed by the public because the system did an excellent job with its intended purpose of getting people to where they needed to go within the city. The trolly cars did such an excellent job in fact that their use was replacing the use and consumption of oil, automobiles and the batteries that started those automobiles. So, there is good evidence to indicate that those three industries: big oil, big auto and battery manufactures colluded and used their real influence over politics and government and in one of the worst ever acts of crony capitalism, pressured politicians in a successful attempt to trash the then perfectly good trolly car system. That the people liked the trolly cars didn't matter because in the minds of career politicians, the people don't matter and as result the common mans opinion has no influential sway over the actions of those career politicians who make the public policies that we all live under.
A popular technique to reinforce the illusion is to assign make-believe titles to the public such as 'taxpayer' as though being a taxpayer affords a citizen any special rights not available to a citizen that doesn't have to pay any taxes. But still the citizen is humored into thinking that he is saying something significant when he cries "I'm a taxpayer!" People tend to equate being a citizen with paying taxes so much so that the term 'taxpayer' has become synonymous with the term 'citizen.' But from a legal standpoint, such a synonym is inaccurate. There is no quid pro quo contractual agreement between a citizen paying taxes and receiving some good or service. There are many revenue sources and potential revenue sources that a government has at its disposal to cover its expenses. The expenses, what the government spends money on, are typically determined by an elected so-called representative who is supposed to make their government paying decisions based on the wants and needs of their constituents. The is no de jure reason for the representative to make an expense determination based on a monetary consideration provided by the citizen by way of payment of taxes. Paying taxes does not necessarily provide you the citizen with any special privileges over and above the privileges afforded to the citizen that pays no taxes at all. While there are laws that demand taxes be paid or the citizen may face certain penalties, those laws were created by the representatives to insure revenue but not as any civil intervention in a breach of contract matter. So it is a mistake to think of the term 'taxpayer' as synonymous with the term 'citizen.' From a rights, privileges and entitlements as a citizen standpoint it doesn't matter that you are a 'taxpayer.' But it is so much easier to pilfer revenue from the citizen if they don't think of it as pilfering but rather as consideration in a binding business agreement between themselves and the government.
Sometimes you will hear, on one occasion a politician urging Americans to support, with the help of military force if necessary, the spreading of democracy around the globe. But then on another occasion the same politician, when faced with a question as to why some change hadn't been enacted that would have been in the general public's interest and that the majority of Americans want to come about that politician might respond with a "whoa whoa whoa this is not a true democracy where we go around willy-nilly doing whatever the whims are of the masses, allowing the tyranny of the mob to come about, we are instead living in a constitutional republic where we have these wise representatives to make the tough decisions about what is best for us and therefore we shouldn't be worrying our pretty little heads about such matters and should instead turn our attentions over to a sporting event or the latest celebrity gossip and stop meddling and interfering with the decision making process of the important people!"
We should have either, as much as is practicable, a pure democracy or a constitutional appointed republic that is revokable by the citizens. It should be very clear by now the ineffective coupling between the desires of the populace and the government's response to those desires that exists in a so-called representative democracy.
The illusion of influence by the populace has perpetuated the current flawed republican form of government. Had our government been in the form of a constitutional republic with appointed rather than elected governing officials the citizenry would have likely revolted a long time ago. But under a pseudo democracy as we have, the people tend to blame each other for the problems of the government. Which is understandable given the illusion of democracy makes people think that the electorate are the ones wielding the influence over the politicians that are deciding what laws are created that governs society. Constituents think all that needs to be done is sway their fellow citizens to vote another way. When that doesn't work, people get frustrated, but unfortunately they don't give up on the representative democracy system altogether. For some reason, for the vast majority, the populace never even considers the option of completely altering their fundamental form of governance. If only they realized that we are living under an appointed republic and not a democratic one, then the people would declare our government unacceptable. Instead, they just keep tilting at windmills thinking 'this time will be different' and all will be well if only their candidate will get elected to office.
Unfortunately, the illusion serves as useful fiction for those that are in power. It becomes much easier to manipulate the people when they think they are the ones in charge. Once the illusion is in place many different forms of manipulation become available that would be much less potent tools if the populace lost their sense of importance in running the country. I believe a certain degree of malaise and apathy would come over the constituents with respect to the day to day governance of the country if they didn't think they had a role to play in that regard. However that apathy would quickly be replaced with a sense of outrage if their material condition or freedoms were severely compromised. Such outrage could then easily evolve into a mob that could leverage its numbers and in a real act of influence, overthrow their dictator. But once the illusion is present then among other techniques of manipulation, perhaps none works better than the old divide and conquer technique whereby parties of different political persuasions are pitted against each other, thus distracted from the pillaging of the resources and freedoms. But the 'dance off' between the parties is as carefully orchestrated as a professional wrestling match. When the ruling elite like things just the way they are, they order a continual partisan stalemate with both sides so evenly matched that no resolution occurs and therefore no change happens with the matter at hand. However, if the powers decide they want something changed, like the enactment of a new free trade agreement, the powers order a bipartisan unity that insures that the agreement is passed. Never mind that such free trade agreements hamstring the peoples ability to leverage, through tariffs, the trade deficits that the US is continually experiencing . The interests of the masses, or the democratic majority, are not what matters in our so-called representative democracy.
Another case in point is the recent proposed legislation known as CISPA and SOPA. While many may think that the first round attempt to pass those laws failed because of a grassroots movement came together in protest against those bills, I doubt the general public had anything to do with the failure of the two bills. I believe those with influence, the large cap internet corporate behemoths such as Google, Amazon and Ebay protested and thus stopped the bills. In our society, the only hope the proletariat has is if their interests and the interests of those with real influence are one and the same.
In another case, back during the Clinton administration, I believe it was during his first term, all of a sudden there was this upswelling of a populist tax reform movement. It seemed every day there was all this talk and pressure to reform both the tax code and especially revenue enforcement in favor of the common man. It even got a great deal of national mainstream news coverage where the news would interview people who would give their horror stories of dealing with the IRS. But from my recollection this sudden movement occurred when the Democrats held control of not only the presidency but also congress and given that the Dems tend to be less inclined to be for tax reform, they took on the role of being the resistors to these reforms that predominantly the Republicans were putting forward. And so the true life narrative in this case played out that the Dems played the role of preventing any significant tax reforms to come out of this new tax movement. Now, fast forward to the George W Bush administration where I believe at least at some point during his tenure the Republicans had a significant amount of control of both the presidency and congress. So, wouldn't that have been a good time to revive the populist tax movement that sprung up during the Clinton administration? Well if there ever was the goal to help the masses with their taxation then that would have been a good time but that was never the goal. The brief tax reform movement during the Clinton administration was just a planned theater designed to reinforce the illusion of influence for the masses to think they started and brought to the public conscious the need to reform the system of tax collection for their fellow citizens. By making the movement so public with the help of the mainstream media which is in collusion with the powers to reinforce the illusion, the public had their mistaken belief in their political potency nicely reinforced. Look at all the power they seemed to have and look at how it was only because of those darn Democrats that nothing came of the movement. Of course the powers that were actually behind the sudden movement were counting on and weren't disappointed in the public's short term memory insuring that almost everyone would have forgotten the brief tax movement once the occasion came to pass where what had been seemingly the only obstacle, the Democrats hold on power, to success in reaching the goal of the movement, no longer existed. I didn't forget, but I think almost everyone else did.
One more example of the lack of influence by the common man over public policy in our supposed democracy is the demise of the trolly car system back in the 1950's. It was a perfectly good public transportation system that every one seemed to love to get around and also had recently been updated with new cars at the time of its dismantling. If the people were really the ones in charge then it must have been at their behest, demanding that the trolly cars be removed that caused the system to be brought almost entirely to a halt around the country all at the same time. One might think people despised those trolly cars because they were so quickly removed from service around the country. But that wasn't the case at all, from what I have heard from people who actually used the trolly cars when they were in service, the trolly cars were heavily utilized and enjoyed by the public because the system did an excellent job with its intended purpose of getting people to where they needed to go within the city. The trolly cars did such an excellent job in fact that their use was replacing the use and consumption of oil, automobiles and the batteries that started those automobiles. So, there is good evidence to indicate that those three industries: big oil, big auto and battery manufactures colluded and used their real influence over politics and government and in one of the worst ever acts of crony capitalism, pressured politicians in a successful attempt to trash the then perfectly good trolly car system. That the people liked the trolly cars didn't matter because in the minds of career politicians, the people don't matter and as result the common mans opinion has no influential sway over the actions of those career politicians who make the public policies that we all live under.
A popular technique to reinforce the illusion is to assign make-believe titles to the public such as 'taxpayer' as though being a taxpayer affords a citizen any special rights not available to a citizen that doesn't have to pay any taxes. But still the citizen is humored into thinking that he is saying something significant when he cries "I'm a taxpayer!" People tend to equate being a citizen with paying taxes so much so that the term 'taxpayer' has become synonymous with the term 'citizen.' But from a legal standpoint, such a synonym is inaccurate. There is no quid pro quo contractual agreement between a citizen paying taxes and receiving some good or service. There are many revenue sources and potential revenue sources that a government has at its disposal to cover its expenses. The expenses, what the government spends money on, are typically determined by an elected so-called representative who is supposed to make their government paying decisions based on the wants and needs of their constituents. The is no de jure reason for the representative to make an expense determination based on a monetary consideration provided by the citizen by way of payment of taxes. Paying taxes does not necessarily provide you the citizen with any special privileges over and above the privileges afforded to the citizen that pays no taxes at all. While there are laws that demand taxes be paid or the citizen may face certain penalties, those laws were created by the representatives to insure revenue but not as any civil intervention in a breach of contract matter. So it is a mistake to think of the term 'taxpayer' as synonymous with the term 'citizen.' From a rights, privileges and entitlements as a citizen standpoint it doesn't matter that you are a 'taxpayer.' But it is so much easier to pilfer revenue from the citizen if they don't think of it as pilfering but rather as consideration in a binding business agreement between themselves and the government.
Sometimes you will hear, on one occasion a politician urging Americans to support, with the help of military force if necessary, the spreading of democracy around the globe. But then on another occasion the same politician, when faced with a question as to why some change hadn't been enacted that would have been in the general public's interest and that the majority of Americans want to come about that politician might respond with a "whoa whoa whoa this is not a true democracy where we go around willy-nilly doing whatever the whims are of the masses, allowing the tyranny of the mob to come about, we are instead living in a constitutional republic where we have these wise representatives to make the tough decisions about what is best for us and therefore we shouldn't be worrying our pretty little heads about such matters and should instead turn our attentions over to a sporting event or the latest celebrity gossip and stop meddling and interfering with the decision making process of the important people!"
We should have either, as much as is practicable, a pure democracy or a constitutional appointed republic that is revokable by the citizens. It should be very clear by now the ineffective coupling between the desires of the populace and the government's response to those desires that exists in a so-called representative democracy.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Patents as an Invention Impediment
Has the existence of patent protection become more of an impediment to creativity and innovation than an incentive? The impediments that patents create include the writing of the application, the filing costs, researching of infringement possibilities and the defense against infringement charges or prosecution of others infringing on ones own patents. Anyone who has gone through the whole patent creation process knows that the above impediments are considerable. As a result, one wonders how much brain power has either been spent on dealing with the impediments or been discouraged by them. I believe that brain power being spent dealing with patents is brain power being diverted from the constructive activity of inventing and towards the nonconstructive legal activities involved in the patent creation and maintenance process. It may be claimed that patent protection is necessary in order to justify the expenses inherent in the invention processes that could only be recouped if the invention as intellectual property is protected from being used by competitors. To some extent I think those claims are exaggerated insofar as it is not so easy both for a competitor to learn how to use the new invention and also to cover the costs of the equipment and tools needed to construct the new invention. But if it is very easy to copy the invention then one might wonder why the patent protection is deserved since the ease of copying would tend to indicate a certain degree of obviousness. But even if we take as a given that in the business world patent protection is needed to justify the invention costs, then perhaps we should forgo relying on the business world for the creation of new inventions to the extent that we as as society currently do. Perhaps we could veer more towards having a government centered invention generation setup. Many of the inventions that we currently take for granted have there origins in the government whether it was originally created for peacetime purposes such as was done for the moonshot operation by NASA or the myriad of inventions created for military purposes. The university system, while it currently does enjoy the income from the many patents it generates, would still presumably be able to continue to create inventions as a function of academic research but not for the purpose of profits but for the purpose that colleges and universities were themselves originally created for; research and education. I also think there is something singularly enjoyable about the creative process itself that lends itself to motivating individuals to engage in process of creation without the carrot of money being dangled before them. I don't think one of the greatest inventors of all time, Nikola Tesla, was just speaking for himself when he stated about the inventing process: "I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success... Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything." If what Mr Tesla says is generally true, then it seems all a society would need to do to foster invention would be to provide inventors with the tools and equipment they need to build their creations along with the food, water and shelter they would also need for basic sustenance and then merely let them alone to 'have at it' with their inventions. If we take as a given that society both wants and needs these new inventions then maybe society would also be willing to provide the resources needed to build and foster invention creation centers or cottages. And once the invention is complete to the inventors and societies satisfaction, it would then be released to the community to be freely used by individuals, businesses or other organizations as they see fit. Imagine what a boon to the creative process it would be if we no longer had to be burdened by the tedium of searching for prior patents to determine if our own invention is infringing on someone else's patent and then if it does incorporate another patent, then having to negotiate an agreement with the other patent holder. Or imagine not having to deal with patent trolls anymore that engage in the practice of sitting on patents just for the sole purpose of extorting money out of alleged infringers even though the trolls never intend to even ever manufacture a product based on those patents they are trying to 'protect.' I think, from a perspective of an inventor, a world free from patents starts to appear more and more pleasant in terms of both the invention process itself and the ability of any given invention to have a positive impact on the world that it interacts with.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Representative Democracy as a Failed Experiment
By Glen Wallace
In NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof column, A Failed Experiment, he points out how in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy there has been a rush by the wealthy to equip their homes with backup generators as a workaround to a crumbling infrastructure that has led to frequent power outages in the NE. While he is not entirely clear in his column what the experiment is that has failed, he seems to be indicating that it is our political system that has failed to address the problems of not only our infrastructure, but also crime, education, healthcare costs and climate change. (On a side note, I am still skeptical about the dominant paradigm of climate change, but I will leave that for another essay.)
In addition to not clearly stating what the experiment was that failed, perhaps out of the limits of space that the NY Times allots him, he didn't present a clear solution either. Well, let me chime in on both accounts. I will present the experiment that failed as the representative democracy that we and most of the western world lives under and a solution of a return, as much as is practically feasible, to a true democracy as was originally practiced and invented by the ancient Greeks.
If one is to stand aside and think mindfully as an observer it should quickly become clear that there seems to be some inherent flaws to our representative system that are intractable. The cause and nature of those flaws can be found by looking at basic human nature and psychology and the vulnerabilities therein that are easily taken advantage of and manipulated by certain vested interests in their interests.
One psychological tendency is to affiliate oneself to what could be called a clan, tribe or wolf pack. We are inherently very social creatures and any perceived threat made by another group directed towards the group we identify ourselves as being a part of will frequently provoke an instinctual reaction to protect one's group and also fight the offending group. Clan feuding or warfare, then, can quickly develop from seemingly small offenses. Additionally, one could imagine it would be easy for someone knowledgeable about these human tendencies, to deliberately manipulate the masses by means of either engaging in false flag attacks or by pushing the emotional buttons and convincing one side that some act by the other side should be considered an insult. In the group dynamics there is nothing more uniting than having a common enemy. That unity is only strengthened the more the common enemy is despised. I have become convinced, then, that the biggest ally for any political candidate is his or her biggest critic. And the more outrageous that critic is, the greater the boost is for the target of that outrageous criticism. Eventually the supporters start to lose touch and forget why they even support their candidate and merely focus on why they dislike the opponent and his or her supporters so much. As a result, the supporters, the constituents, also forget, or demand, that their candidate, once in office, takes care of things like the infrastructure, education and health care costs. All their energy is focused, as if under a trans like delusion, on the enemy clan as the root of all the ails of society and the world.
Here in the US we have two main political clans and they go by the names of the 'Republicans' and the 'Democrats.' And within each clan there are figures, the politicians, that take on patriarchal and matriarchal roles to the adult citizens who subconsciously want to revert back to comfort of childhood when they could always look to Mommy and Daddy to take care of everything. Childhood was such an easier and simpler time for most that the lure of the comfort of that time makes it difficult to resist when a politician offers to effectively"kiss the boo boo and make it all better." The elected official then is effectively offering to act in a parental role, where they are taking care of everything on a societal level, that the parent took care of, on a household level, when the constituents were children. Most of us, as we were growing up, didn't have to occupy our thoughts with whether the roof was due for new shingles, or that the electric bill was paid on time or the myriad of other details of daily necessities of modern life. So why, our reflex becomes, do we need to be concerned that our politicians aren't making sure that the infrastructure, the house of civilization, is being kept in good repair. Sure, such questions may occur to us from time to time -- especially during a crisis like Hurricane Sandy, but as soon as the crisis passes, those questions quickly fleet from the forefront of our mind and become like a fictional story of history.
The solution then, is to force upon ourselves the role of being the grown-ups that we of voting age are all supposed to be. We can no longer kid ourselves into believing that the responsibilities of governing a society can be left in the hands of a few individuals that are confronted with a plethora of temptations while being afforded a level of ivory tower isolation that protects them from public accountability. And the only way we can stop primal regression into feuding clans, is to come to dissolve our political clans and come to the realization that we are one big family with a lot of adults that are perfectly capable of sharing the burden of deciding how to run this country. It is when we are faced with a true democracy, where every adult citizen gets an equal say in how things are run, that we realize we can no longer escape dealing with our adult responsibilities of dealing with things like infrastructure maintenance and repair. And like a family all living under one roof, we will realize that there is no other acceptable solution than to find ways to get along rather than finding ways to fight each other. There are already many examples where we as a society automatically realize that, when we are all together a one group in an enclosed space, whether it be an airplane cabin, an elevator, or a restaurant, that we must achieve a certain degree of civility that facilitates everyone getting along with each other. I believe that same automatic realization of peaceful coexistence and cooperation will also kick in once we realize that in a true democracy we all have to work together as adults to come to solutions to all of our shared problems.
In NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof column, A Failed Experiment, he points out how in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy there has been a rush by the wealthy to equip their homes with backup generators as a workaround to a crumbling infrastructure that has led to frequent power outages in the NE. While he is not entirely clear in his column what the experiment is that has failed, he seems to be indicating that it is our political system that has failed to address the problems of not only our infrastructure, but also crime, education, healthcare costs and climate change. (On a side note, I am still skeptical about the dominant paradigm of climate change, but I will leave that for another essay.)
In addition to not clearly stating what the experiment was that failed, perhaps out of the limits of space that the NY Times allots him, he didn't present a clear solution either. Well, let me chime in on both accounts. I will present the experiment that failed as the representative democracy that we and most of the western world lives under and a solution of a return, as much as is practically feasible, to a true democracy as was originally practiced and invented by the ancient Greeks.
If one is to stand aside and think mindfully as an observer it should quickly become clear that there seems to be some inherent flaws to our representative system that are intractable. The cause and nature of those flaws can be found by looking at basic human nature and psychology and the vulnerabilities therein that are easily taken advantage of and manipulated by certain vested interests in their interests.
One psychological tendency is to affiliate oneself to what could be called a clan, tribe or wolf pack. We are inherently very social creatures and any perceived threat made by another group directed towards the group we identify ourselves as being a part of will frequently provoke an instinctual reaction to protect one's group and also fight the offending group. Clan feuding or warfare, then, can quickly develop from seemingly small offenses. Additionally, one could imagine it would be easy for someone knowledgeable about these human tendencies, to deliberately manipulate the masses by means of either engaging in false flag attacks or by pushing the emotional buttons and convincing one side that some act by the other side should be considered an insult. In the group dynamics there is nothing more uniting than having a common enemy. That unity is only strengthened the more the common enemy is despised. I have become convinced, then, that the biggest ally for any political candidate is his or her biggest critic. And the more outrageous that critic is, the greater the boost is for the target of that outrageous criticism. Eventually the supporters start to lose touch and forget why they even support their candidate and merely focus on why they dislike the opponent and his or her supporters so much. As a result, the supporters, the constituents, also forget, or demand, that their candidate, once in office, takes care of things like the infrastructure, education and health care costs. All their energy is focused, as if under a trans like delusion, on the enemy clan as the root of all the ails of society and the world.
Here in the US we have two main political clans and they go by the names of the 'Republicans' and the 'Democrats.' And within each clan there are figures, the politicians, that take on patriarchal and matriarchal roles to the adult citizens who subconsciously want to revert back to comfort of childhood when they could always look to Mommy and Daddy to take care of everything. Childhood was such an easier and simpler time for most that the lure of the comfort of that time makes it difficult to resist when a politician offers to effectively"kiss the boo boo and make it all better." The elected official then is effectively offering to act in a parental role, where they are taking care of everything on a societal level, that the parent took care of, on a household level, when the constituents were children. Most of us, as we were growing up, didn't have to occupy our thoughts with whether the roof was due for new shingles, or that the electric bill was paid on time or the myriad of other details of daily necessities of modern life. So why, our reflex becomes, do we need to be concerned that our politicians aren't making sure that the infrastructure, the house of civilization, is being kept in good repair. Sure, such questions may occur to us from time to time -- especially during a crisis like Hurricane Sandy, but as soon as the crisis passes, those questions quickly fleet from the forefront of our mind and become like a fictional story of history.
The solution then, is to force upon ourselves the role of being the grown-ups that we of voting age are all supposed to be. We can no longer kid ourselves into believing that the responsibilities of governing a society can be left in the hands of a few individuals that are confronted with a plethora of temptations while being afforded a level of ivory tower isolation that protects them from public accountability. And the only way we can stop primal regression into feuding clans, is to come to dissolve our political clans and come to the realization that we are one big family with a lot of adults that are perfectly capable of sharing the burden of deciding how to run this country. It is when we are faced with a true democracy, where every adult citizen gets an equal say in how things are run, that we realize we can no longer escape dealing with our adult responsibilities of dealing with things like infrastructure maintenance and repair. And like a family all living under one roof, we will realize that there is no other acceptable solution than to find ways to get along rather than finding ways to fight each other. There are already many examples where we as a society automatically realize that, when we are all together a one group in an enclosed space, whether it be an airplane cabin, an elevator, or a restaurant, that we must achieve a certain degree of civility that facilitates everyone getting along with each other. I believe that same automatic realization of peaceful coexistence and cooperation will also kick in once we realize that in a true democracy we all have to work together as adults to come to solutions to all of our shared problems.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
On the Need for Regulations and Tariffs
By Glen Wallace
I think we tend to take for granted the regulations that protect the consumer. As an example there was the problem with the toxic drywall from China that had it been manufactured in the US perhaps the existing regulations in this country would have prevented the problems from occurring in the first place. Additionally there are certain food and drink manufacturing regulations that we count on to insure that those products are safe to consume. But these are the sorts of regulations that the consumer both wants and needs. I think both of those factors must be present before regulatory restrictions are implemented on any given product. If the consumer wants to consume something that the government believes is unsafe for the consumer, then the consumer should still be allowed to consume the product. The government should not be taking on a 'Big Brother knows best' approach where they exist to be our masters that protect us from ourselves. Rather government should be the servant of the people and only takes on the role of protector when we ask it to, but quickly backs off when ordered to do so as well.
The following is a post I wrote somewhere in response to a speech/testimony by Peter Schiff:
Mr Schiff is so selective in his arguments, only pulling out the best examples that appear to support his positions while selectively ignoring the glaring refutational examples. For instance in the case of Henry Ford the workers and the economy benefited by the wisdom and benevolence of Mr Ford. But given human nature we can not count on all the heads of business to have such virtuous characteristics.
All too many in business suffer from a case of tunnel vision nearsightedness, where if they can get away with squeezing every last dime of productivity without killing their employees they will do it. I'm thinking of the sort of characters as Scarlett O'hara from 'Gone with the Wind' and her treatment of the prison laborers in her husbands lumber mill. It is for those sorts that government regulation is absolutely necessary to protect the worker from abuse by the Scarlett O'haras and pre-epiphany Ebenezer Scrooges of the world. I also think back to the working conditions as featured accurately in Upton Sinclair's book 'The Jungle'. There wasn't much unions or government regulation then either. What did the free market do for those workers Mr Schiff?
But on the other hand I believe supporters of heavy regulation in the US often have an out-of-sight-out-of-mind approach in ignoring how a lack of regulations on foreign businesses with regard to workers rights and the environment, creates an incentive to offshore work to those countries with factories that abuse the environment and their workers due to lack of regulations. But when it comes time to import those foreign made goods, the pro regulation set is silent and by their silence, imply that it is perfectly fine to buy those goods and thereby support those foreign factories that may be paying slave-like wages and polluting the environment.
It doesn't make any sense to support regulation under the pretext that it is being done to protect the workers and the environment when there is no disincentive to offshore the work to countries where workers and the environment are not being protected. As a solution I would suggest implementing a tariff system that varies inversely with the level of regulation in the country of manufacture for a product. For instance, a very high tariff would be levied against Chinese made goods whereas little to no tariff would be put on products made in Germany.
I think we tend to take for granted the regulations that protect the consumer. As an example there was the problem with the toxic drywall from China that had it been manufactured in the US perhaps the existing regulations in this country would have prevented the problems from occurring in the first place. Additionally there are certain food and drink manufacturing regulations that we count on to insure that those products are safe to consume. But these are the sorts of regulations that the consumer both wants and needs. I think both of those factors must be present before regulatory restrictions are implemented on any given product. If the consumer wants to consume something that the government believes is unsafe for the consumer, then the consumer should still be allowed to consume the product. The government should not be taking on a 'Big Brother knows best' approach where they exist to be our masters that protect us from ourselves. Rather government should be the servant of the people and only takes on the role of protector when we ask it to, but quickly backs off when ordered to do so as well.
The following is a post I wrote somewhere in response to a speech/testimony by Peter Schiff:
Mr Schiff is so selective in his arguments, only pulling out the best examples that appear to support his positions while selectively ignoring the glaring refutational examples. For instance in the case of Henry Ford the workers and the economy benefited by the wisdom and benevolence of Mr Ford. But given human nature we can not count on all the heads of business to have such virtuous characteristics.
All too many in business suffer from a case of tunnel vision nearsightedness, where if they can get away with squeezing every last dime of productivity without killing their employees they will do it. I'm thinking of the sort of characters as Scarlett O'hara from 'Gone with the Wind' and her treatment of the prison laborers in her husbands lumber mill. It is for those sorts that government regulation is absolutely necessary to protect the worker from abuse by the Scarlett O'haras and pre-epiphany Ebenezer Scrooges of the world. I also think back to the working conditions as featured accurately in Upton Sinclair's book 'The Jungle'. There wasn't much unions or government regulation then either. What did the free market do for those workers Mr Schiff?
But on the other hand I believe supporters of heavy regulation in the US often have an out-of-sight-out-of-mind approach in ignoring how a lack of regulations on foreign businesses with regard to workers rights and the environment, creates an incentive to offshore work to those countries with factories that abuse the environment and their workers due to lack of regulations. But when it comes time to import those foreign made goods, the pro regulation set is silent and by their silence, imply that it is perfectly fine to buy those goods and thereby support those foreign factories that may be paying slave-like wages and polluting the environment.
It doesn't make any sense to support regulation under the pretext that it is being done to protect the workers and the environment when there is no disincentive to offshore the work to countries where workers and the environment are not being protected. As a solution I would suggest implementing a tariff system that varies inversely with the level of regulation in the country of manufacture for a product. For instance, a very high tariff would be levied against Chinese made goods whereas little to no tariff would be put on products made in Germany.
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