[GJM] #829, Paths To UTOPIA, Hard Or Easy, Are We Free To Choose?

[wesburt at juno.com]

Good Day to Members Of The Panel And 
The Clerisy,

More than 200 e-mails on your visions 
of Utopia have arrived in my mail box, 
and I read each one.  I thank John Watkins 
for including me on the distribution for this 
forum, even though I am not scheduled as 
a panelist until the 21 September forum 
on "Assuring Social Justice."  Lurking on 
forums, as Miles Michael said, is great fun, 
informative, and free; where as advocating 
departures from the status quo can cost 
the advocate his day job, his property, or 
his life.

Asking fifteen panelists for their vision of 
utopia is like asking fifteen US citizens 
what ails the United States, and what 
corrective action will cure what ails it.  
There will be a minimum of fifteen answers, 
even though all versions of utopia and 
corrective actions must be rooted in Liberty 
And Justice For All.  Even with this common 
root each of us sees the subject from a 
different vantage point.  Here then is reason 
for the hard and difficult path to Utopia.

There is however an easy path to utopia, 
but this panel, and every other panel I 
have visited since 1994, either has no 
knowledge of an easy path or its members 
are in complete denial of the existence of 
an alternative easy path.  Have any of you 
ever been so fortunate as to join a panel 
or committee which did not defend the 
status quo by debating the merits of many 
possible solutions to any simple problem.  
And yet, this easy path, missing or lost 
from our public debate, is the standard 
operating practice (SOP) of corporate 
management in the private sectors of our 
industrial nations.  The corporate interest 
is sharply focused, and any practice which 
limits the market for, or puts an excessive 
price on, the corporation's new products is 
simply not tolerated.  In our public affairs, 
to the contrary, the clerisy which manages 
our public affairs seems intent on keeping 
the public on its knees; praying, paying, 
and obeying.  

On Sun, 22 Jul 2007, Paul deLespinasse 
reminded me of the easy path to utopia, 
or any other desired objective, when he 
wrote, in part:

"Would someone please explain to me the 
difference, if any, between "reciprocity" as 
employed here,  and Marx' 
"From each according to his ability,  
to each according to his needs"?

Doesn't this require that human nature be 
very different from what it presently is?"
~~~~~~ End Paul's observation ~~~~~~

The familiar statement which Karl Marx used so concisely, in his 1875
Critique Of The Gotha Program, 
is not only "very descriptive of good families," as Paul said, but also
very descriptive of well managed corporations and well governed
communities.  We need only add a few qualifying words to get rid of the
taint of socialism, which keeps English speaking people from applying
Louis Blanc's "Governing Principle of The State" to their public affairs.

>From each according to his ability, (while in production).   To each
according to his needs, 
(while in development or disabled).

In this configuration, the statement defines exactly the required
feedback from production to development and shines new light on Adam
Smith's First Maxim of Taxation, which equates the expense of government
in the public sector to the expense of management in the private sector. 
So now the question becomes: have our local governments capitalized the
expense of human development as adequately as our corporations have
capitalized the expense of capital development?  If not, why not?

Let me conclude this late message to the 
forum by answering John Watkins's two 
questions In his welcoming message:
 
"What is the future-ideal? What systemic and 
behavioral changes are needed to get there?"

1, My future-ideal, utopia indeed, would be 
a society in which our public affairs were 
managed as well as the General  Electric 
Company was in the 1950s and operated 
as reliably as our electric power grid has 
been to date.  This is the optimum policy 
(TOP) based on my limited experience in 
ten US corporations.

2, Human nature, and the human life cycle, 
have not changed significantly over for last 
ten thousand years.  But there is a systemic 
defect of omission in our public policy that 
can be traced back to the Civil War in the 
United States and back to the 975 B.C. Folly 
Of Rehoboam, (I Kings 12) in the Old World.
This defect is our 50% capitalization of the 
expense of human development.  This is the 
wrong policy (TWP) based on my eighty three 
years of observing unchanging human nature.  
If we discuss the defect, it will be corrected 
in the USA, as it was in Japan and Europe to 
facilitate their post World War II economic 
miracles.

Since this note is so close to the end of 
the panel on utopia, I'll ask John Watkins 
to forgive me for attaching Figure 12m, 
which is a later revision than figure 12 
on the web site below. 

Kind Regards,

Wes Burt

  TOP and TWP are cognoscible by sixth graders from
        Fig. 7-9.gif on Dr. W. Curtiss Priest's web site:
         <http://www.epie.org/cyber-soc/default.htm>
 TOP = 100% Capitalism --- TWP = 0 to  50% Capitalism
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