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

[Steve Nieman]

Wes,

I enjoyed your post as usual.

Your modification of Karl Marx's/Communism's famous is interesting:   
 From each according to his ability, (while in production).   To each  
according to his needs,
(while in development or disabled).  I'll have to mull it over for  
awhile.

At some point, technology will remove the requirement for anyone to  
work, if they don't want to.  So the catch will be how to set up  
government/corporate institutions properly to fairly distribute what  
is produced primarily by machines.

Human labor in the economy is changing BIG time compared to what Marx  
observed while he was alive on Earth.  As time twirls away behind us,  
more and more of what he advocated just doesn't have the same  
meaning, is the way I see it.  As usual, people who are alive NOW  
have got to figure out new ways of doing everyday things so we can  
all live our lives in peace and harmony.

As you've observed, in many ways we are NOT free to choose.  Life,  
Nature is the way She is.  We need to find ways to dance with Her and  
not against.

Regards,
Steve Nieman
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Jul 24, 2007, at 5:57 PM, wesburt at juno.com wrote:

> 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
>
> <Fig12m.gif>
> _______________________________________________
> Discussion mailing list
> Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net
> http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/ 
> discussion_globaljusticemovement.net

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://globaljusticemovement.net/pipermail/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net/attachments/20070725/cfa3910d/attachment.html