I doubt either ideology is functional in their purest forms.

There should be equal access to the means to the pursuit of happiness as is possible. One class should not have a monopoly on those means, whether they are raw materials or knowledge. Nor do I think we should support someone from cradle to grave who does not want to contribute, given fare means to the "pursuit of happiness."

As it stands, we have shifted into a Neo-Gilded Age "survival of the fittest" model. The reaction to this distribution of wealth will undoubtedly result in social upheaval. The response will be the same as it has been historically, to instate enough populism to keep the villagers from storming the castle. Unfortunately, the next "social contract" will not be as easily supported by economic facilities. FDR had cheap energy, "limitless" resources, a recently regulated financial sector, he did not have to contend with NAFTA and CAFTA type "Free Trade" policies, and finally he did not have a nation indebted to potential enemy.

Work is the first essential condition of LIFE. Bear no pickee berries = bear no eatee berries = bear die. Man's situation the same: insertion of money between work and eat does nothing to change the fundamental situation humans find themselves in.

Society has no right to withhold jobs from anyone, or societal living is a net loss of benefits that man had in a state of nature.

The purpose of government is JUSTICE. - James Madison

Withholding jobs is the most egregious unjustice that can be inflicted upon anyone, short of murdering them OUTRIGHT,DIRECTLY.

Withhold job = kill a person.

We constitute governments as a necessary evil for the benefits we wouldn't have without them. Man in Society has to be compared to Man in his original State of Nature, to determine whether or not societal living is a gain for mankind.

All governments are pirates if you let them be pirates. Vigilance about WHAT is the question.

Vigilance about JUSTICE, most important justice is fairpay justice, economic justice - that is what matters.

And THAT is what is being ignored, and THAT is what is killing us all and this planet.

Equal sacrifice deserves equal pay.

We have hell on earth for 100% of people.

We could have heaven on Earth - easily.

See everything I've ever written here for the only way out of Hell.

Global geopolitical dislocation is on deck, coming soon. Your neighborhood will not escape the horrors coming down this pike.

Nothing matters now but the race between education and catastrophe.

Learn that economic inequality - maldistribution of material wealth - is the determinate issue that underpins ALL OTHER ISSUES.

LEARN TO DESPISE ALL TALK OF "EQUAL OPPORTUNITY". DEATH OF HUMANITY LIES THAT WAY.

It is not a question of ideology, philosophy, spirituality or morality. It is a question of reason versus irrationality. It is a question of will we recognize the nature-mandated reality we are in, and proceed accordingly, or not.

Our happiness, safety, and indeed our survival is utterly dependent upon our ability to GET REALLY REALLY REAL.

"Work is the first essential condition of LIFE."

agree. Livelihood, means to secure sustenance.

"Society has no right to withhold jobs from anyone"

Neither society or government create the bulk of jobs to be withheld or distributed. The question is "is it incumbent upon society to create and distribute jobs", and likewise "is it a right to receive a job courtesy of society or government?"

There is a huge difference between the two sets of questions.

"It is not a question of ideology"

whether it should be or shouldn't be I dunno. But I think politically it is. As politically folks do seem to be divided by ideologies and in this case one of the dominant ideologies can be summarized as "screw the poor", or "I've got mine, don't worry about his". As James Brown said.

The ideological aspect is important to me.

My oh my, what a deep pool you have Grandma! And it looks like the bottom is lined with broken glass too!

Couldn't help but notice that while you are quite clear in stating what you don't agree with, you tend to neglect how you think it should be.

I am behind XO, employers don't make jobs, nature does. I'd posit 'dumpster diving' is proof positive of this axiom. (Although some sicko's are cheapskate enough to risk their health in a foolish effort to fatten their wallets.)

Oddly, you'd think nature would have created some kind of money...but alas, no such luck. In lieu of money, nature doesn't have anything resembling a refrigerator (besides the polar regions) with the express purpose of extending, er, 'freshness'.

This means edibles are limited to seasonality, you may want lettuce in the winter but you ain't gonna find any! But if you had some money, you can have lettuce flown in from somewhere warm!

So perhaps it would be more constructive to limit the conversation to the point where 'government' becomes useful?

The 'Law' (a.k.a. government) doesn't stop people from 'squatting' or 'foraging' although many communities have 'ordinances' prohibiting such practices.

Isn't it weird that the thing that makes money 'valuable' is the government's power to levy taxes and its ability to demand those taxes be paid in the 'scrip/specie they, er, issue? (More disturbing is their ability to set exchange rates based on whatever pops into their heads at the time...)

But I digress...the discussion, if I'm not reading anything into it, is about the 'scope' of government.

In this respect you have one of your wheels pointing in the wrong direction...rather than guaranteeing 'sustenance' we would be more concerned if the government were within its rights to deny us the ability to obtain it...yes, the 'property rights' issue. Is it MY fruit or is it ours? It's the same 'jagged little pill' the dumpster diver faces, it is being thrown away but he is still not, er, 'entitled' to this...'property' and can be arrested for its 'theft'...

Nature has a rather simple solution to this quandry but 'the law' tends to view things differently...

To 'justify' the capitalist agenda, we arrive at the 'endless planet' where resources are set to unlimited...(they're just not 'evenly distributed' as far as the government/law is concerned.)

But that's not the 'primary purpose' of government, is it?

Isn't the primary purpose the enforcement of the prohibition against killing one another on sight? (Usually the end result of the victim having ripped us off...or being in possession of something we'd like to rip-off.)

Do we need a 'president' or Congress? No, we need the damn cops and we need 'em bad!

For all practical purposes, this is why governments keep springing up, even after they've been violently overthrown!

You may hate the government but you'd hate it even more if the big prick down the street blocked your access to the watering hole...and there was nobody to defend your right to use it.

I feel like I went 'off course'...is this about the 'attributes' of government or what 'should be' in the social contract?

Once again, such issues defy easy answers...

'I doubt either ideology is functional in their purest forms.'

Sorry I missed your post earlier Curse914. I agree and arrived at the same conclusion.

But the reason why the ideological gulf is important is that due to our partisan polarization we have two "sides" in the debate pursuing the pure form of their ideological ends, without a recognition that that end is simply not gonna work. Without a recognition that both the ideology they fully support and the one they fully oppose is a valid or desirable ideology.

Our whole political paradigm is therefore illegitimate and framing a generation of people's visions of the future into poisonous terms.

"Couldn't help but notice that while you are quite clear in stating what you don't agree with, you tend to neglect how you think it should be."

Does anybody really know what political ideology should be (adopted)?

I think we are just beginning to explore our options and so far nearly every social experiment larger than that of family of tribe/village has taught us that "that didn't work too well". Or "that sure didn't last long", or "that sure went to hell in a hurry".

Tis true that most 'social constructs' are 'tainted' by self-interest and the more blatant they are, the shorter lived they tend to be.

Worse, (IMHO) is the fact that we have such a difficult time agreeing on a 'starting point!'

Um, He who governs least, governs best, is fairly universal...but widely ignored. (I blame this on the 'Spirit in the Sky' thing, although the Commies managed to screw things up nicely even without that 'distraction'.)

Is it your intent to explore the 'scope' of government and the resulting social contract (and possibly lay the groundwork) or are you just 'venting?'

"Does anybody really know what political ideology should be (adopted)?"

REALITY and The Golden Rule must be adopted/recognized/accepted.

What else makes sense? Where else makes sense to start from?

THIS is our insane human reality: 2 people who work the same hardness of working for the same hours will get up and go to work today, and at the end of the day we will pay one of those working people a million times average pay and the other one a thousandth the average. One worker will get a billion times what the other got.

Bill Gates, at his peak pay, pulled US$10 million an hour while the world average was US$10 an hour [$10 per hour if we had been paying housewives and students too]. That means he has given one hour of his life to the world, and got in return a million hours of others' lives. It means that he does one hours' work and is rewarded with a US$10 million house or factory.

Is there anyone in the world who has the desire to give anyone a $10 million house in reward for an hours' work?

Why are we doing it?

There is something of the order of a million hours' work in such a house. Which is 400 years of 50 hour weeks.

Is this madness harmless?

As one person takes the produce of a million people, so 3000 such people would take the produce of 3 billion workers. That is, the produce of all the world workers, including housewives and students. We don't have 3000 Bill Gates. But 6000 people, taking between the average and a million times the average, will take as much as 3000 people, all taking a million times, will take. And we are very close to that. We are within 10% of that. We have 1% taking 90% of world earnings. With a fraction of that 1% taking the bulk.

We basically have a very very few owning and controlling the rest of us. A very very few taking most earnings of the rest of us. A ginormous theft. A very few taking most of everyone's money. Is this madness harmless?

90% are on between a 10th and a 1000th of what they earn, of the wealth they create by their work. The world is a southern plantation. This theft is very very apparent. No one who is a victim of it is unaware of it. It is just plain theft. You are reduced to a 100th of your present income. You are not happy. You are aware you have been ripped off. Every second of your life reminds you of it. Every hour at work. Every hour of rest in poverty amid wealth. And there are 5 billion of you.

It means war. War of robbed against robbed, robbed against robbers, robbers against robbed, robbers against robbers. Everyone against everyone.

Is this quality of life? Or is this an artificial construction of pain?

Everybody works. More or less the same. Noone can work more than 100 hours a week. The average person works 50 hours a week. The range of quantity of work is not great. From zero to double the average. The range of hourly pay is from a million times to 1000th of the average. Is something wrong here?

War and weaponry have escalated for 1000s of years, racing towards extinction.

Where is the sense? Where is the control of our destiny?

With wealth distribution [indirectly is best for good, practical reasons, but i won't go into the details here] brought into approximation with equal hourly payrate, that is, with fairpay justice, with equal pay for equal sacrifice of time and energies to working, every family in the world working average hard would be on US$200,000. That is, every family working average hard is creating US$200,000 of wealth, and 99% are being robbed of some of it, 90% are being robbed of between 90% and 99.9% of it.

Would every family in the world on US$200,000 be paradise compared to this we have?

What is stopping us? What can stop us? Everyone will gain. Enormously. From being in paradise compared to this.

What benefit of the present situation can compare to the benefits of such a paradise?

"I think we are just beginning to explore our options and so far nearly every social experiment larger than that of family of tribe/village has taught us that "that didn't work too well". Or "that sure didn't last long", or "that sure went to hell in a hurry"."

Because people have never yet realized that: A just cap on personal fortunes defeats all methods past, present, and future of circumventing justice.

Unemployment is engineered by business, through government, to cow the workforce to accept lower wages. Unemployment can be got rid of at any time, simply by floating the point at which overtime rates kick in. Lowering the overtime point [hrs/wk] drives employers to hire more people rather than pay overtime rates. When employment is full, the overtime point can rise. When unemployment exists [above 2% - there are always people between jobs, and people happily living off capital], the overtime point is lowered until the surplus labour is absorbed.

Right to work is unalienable because work is the first essential condition of life. Society is bound to at least do no harm - there is no point in society if it doesn’t help - and work is vital to health, self-esteem, etc. No society has a right to withhold work.

Can't remember if I've posted this before:

A morality, philosophy, or ideology is either rationally based or it is irrational. If it is irrationally based, or adopted without awareness of the rational basis under it, it is insane, and all the actions based on it are insane (self-destructive). We need the basic reminder: We need rationality (sense, sanity). Irrationality is not as good as rationality. The culture has turned asking why into rudeness. Pushed out rationality! Driven the culture insane, put it on an irrational basis. Don't ask why: "just do it". That is, be a robot, a cipher, a complete waste of life. Don't exist, don't be genuine, don't require rationality in your life, don't be a nuisance, don't think, don't get a rational foundation, just join others in irrational activity. Don't critically examine what your society is doing, just throw yourself in with whatever it is doing willy-nilly. Cicero: To think is to live. Socrates: The unexamined life is not worth living. Bible: Seek, Test everything. The culture that needs to be reminded to think, to function with rationality, is far gone.

Somebody once said to me they were "all in favour of having some kind of ideology". That sounds like: Just grab an ideology off the shelf as you skateboard past - any one, it doesn't matter which because none of them is rational. Teachers of moralities and ideologies don't bother with rationality. They don't have the rationality at their fingertips and it is an effort to think, so don't ask. And, over time, the rationality stopped being anywhere even close to people's minds. Everyone is functioning without rationality, so, hey, get in the flow, join the crowd. People just hear of moralities, know that they are around, and file them away in the morality pigeonhole in the brain. Oh yeah, morality, yeah, I have one of those. Golden rule, yeah, I know, that sort of thing. What sort of thing? Well, it isn't rational or anything, but we have it anyway. Why?

Guess what. The golden rule - and justice - are rationally based. They are practical, realistic, very simple good sense: Don't hit people, because they hit back. Don't injure people, because they injure back. People get so much information, they lose their common sense. We never have enough time to get back from all the information dumped on us, back to common sense, the fundamentals, the very, very simple point. Be still and experience reality. We are never still enough to get to reality. Justice is non-injury. Look at the case of Israelis and Palestinians. The Israelis (and everyone else doing the same sort of thing) don't realise that they are injuring *themselves* by firing rockets. If there was a rubber wall instead of Palestinians sending back rockets, the Israelis would grasp the fact they are injuring themselves. The effect is the same, rockets coming at the Israelis. The Israelis see the "justice" of sending back a rocket, whenever the Palestinians send a rocket. Take that, you Palestinians.

Forget the Palestinians for a moment, Israel. Think just of yourself for a change. What is the effect of your actions on you? Injury. Suffering. Horrors. Unsafety. Endless, expensive, escalating violence. Endlessly escalating misery. Endless expense. In money, time, labour and misery. The Palestinians have 20th of the average Israeli income. It would be far, far, far cheaper to give them pay justice. It would be practical, realistic, good sense. It would be self-interest. It would be rational pursuit of your own happiness. Charlie Chaplin hits the boxing machine, it hits back with equal force. Charlie Chaplin gets mad at the boxing machine for hitting him, and he hits it harder and it hits back with equal force. How smart was Hitler, thinking that plundering Europe was a happiness strategy? Europe plundered right back. Hitler, bunker, bullet. Well, duh, big fat duh.

We have been taught to not be selfish. What is wrong with selfishness is not the self-interest, the pursuit of your own happiness, it is the ignorance of, or the forgetting of, the simple fact that people are too dangerous to annoy. People are totally unreliable as doormats. Give up the impractical, unrealistic dream of people being doormats. Accept that they never have been and never will be. (And there is no reason why they should be.) Old order or new, money is power - but every plutocracy has been brought down. Money is the second greatest power. The largest fortune is weaker than the rest of the world. Injustice doesn't work. It is a vice, that is, it is an absolutely certain cause of unhappiness. Even if you die a natural death, like Stalin, your life is completely ruined by the immense labour of self-defense, and by the isolation from the trust with, and belonging to, the human tribe, which is such a great part of happiness.

The issue we humans keep ignoring is the very one that cuts across all other issues. Pay injustice is the greatest injustice, because it is theft of money, which is the joker good, good for most things, including essentials for life, and social power. People are never going to take that theft lying down. Never.

The person who is totally selfish, in the right way, who is pursuing his self-interest, his maximal happiness, accepts, immediately, fully and freely, that people resent and retaliate injury, and much of his "selfish" self-interest energies are happily engaged in avoiding injury to others. Kindness is the real Realpolitik - it is the hardest-nosed practicality. Other people are a near-perfect rubber wall. What you give is what you get back.

Decadent morality, which we have had for millennia, has made the virtues stink. All people think of the virtues are that they are a useless chore. Morality has been made odious to people, by ignorance or ignoring of the rationality in it, and by use of force or social pressure to enforce it. When force is used, you are implying that there is no other reason for doing it, you are teaching that morality is a useless chore. Morality long ago got into the hands of those who believe in injury, theft, overpay, and they have used morality as a stick and a prod. They couldn't give the rationality, because their "reasons' were irrational; they didn't know the real reasons. For those who believe in God, surely you believe God is sane. If God is rational and loving, he has loving, rational reasons for his advice to obey the golden rule (which is "all the law and all the prophets", which is the gist of morality).

The Golden Rule makes sense, and is good for you, it saves you from suffering. It is a kindly good true wise sensible sane loving rule. It increases your happiness.

Those who have been most vigorous in irrationality, in the wrong selfishness, in the Hitlerian, conqueror stupidity, in the cretinous underestimation of retaliation, have enforced the golden rule on others, without reasons, to facilitate their plundering. They took god hostage. They emasculated the message that was coming through wise people till it served their mistaken ideas of their self-interest. They made themselves miserable and all others miserable. For thousands of years. No one was teaching the sanity, the rational, realistic, practical foundation of the golden rule and justice: people are no good at being doormats. Spit in his eye, get your nose broken. Aristotle says it is the obvious which is hard to see. The simple truths have so few moving parts, they are hard to see.

By putting morality on a force, threat of punishment, authoritarian, obedience, state terrorist basis, those ignorant, self-destructive, irrational, conquering-minded people have undermined rationality and love. Giordano Bruno: Once love was used in the church, now force. But the truth is still there, half-hidden, in the words: love others as yourself. That is, love yourself perfectly and love others as much as you (rightly and properly) love yourself. What is more simple sense than that you are supposed to love yourself, that you are supposed to pursue your self-interest, your happiness? Every snail does it; every bird knows this loving right. That is your right and your duty, your responsibility. Every snail accepts this responsibility and loving right. Without that, you lack the basis for the rationality of not injuring others. The reason for not injuring others is because it will mean bad stuff for you. If the injury doesn't come back directly to you, it will certainly ricochet around in your environment of other people and get back to you some time, some way. It will pollute your environment with violence, ill-feeling, hatred, resentment, bad stuff.

We have failed to learn the golden rule, because the basis for it, intelligent, observant, realistic self-interest, has been stolen from us. It is only the rationality of self-interest that drives the boat of the golden rule. If we don't care about ourselves, if we have been made ashamed of the right and duty to pursue our happiness, what basis is there for caring about anyone else? The argument to authority (it is true because X said it is true) is false. It is false because the wisest get things wrong. And even if they never got things wrong, there is no way we can see the reasons just from someone's word that it is true. Even the argument to the authority of god (it is true because (someone said) god said it) is false. The only true argument is a good reason that people can see. Don't injure others because they will injure back. Simple as. But we have been cut off from this simple sense for thousands of years. When did you ever see the golden rule explained?

Government has been in the hands of the stupidest, the ones with least instinctive sense of the rationality and simple sense of the golden rule, and they have destroyed rationality, love, morality, golden rule - the very basis for having an ideology - everything. They have thrown us into a mental and moral morass that now keeps us inert.

Have you heard of one dictator, one super-overpaid, who had a good old happy relaxed free easy time of it? They are swimming like superman to stay afloat, being pulled down by the whole world. The super-overpaid are not getting more numerous: there are as many coming down as going up. Like a Las Vegas needle-shaped fountain, every bit that goes up comes down. Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Mark Anthony, Cleopatra, Ceausescu, Marie Antoinette, Charles I, Richard III, an endless stream. Like the king of the grove that Frazer writes about, who gets the role by killing the last king, and who has to meet every challenger.

Hence it should be obvious now and in the future (if we learn in time to have one) that justice, non-injury is certainly a cause of happiness. And we have super-extreme pay injustice. So we can be super-extremely happier. And we will be, as soon as we get our thinking caps on, as soon as we get our house back on the foundation of rationality.

btw, hello everybody. sorry i didn't take time to say hi earlier. truly hope everybody is well.

Hey Joe Lyles, you lazy slacker, where the bloody blue blazes are you these days? What UP, Toots?

Since this is broadly applicable, I am not going to direct it at any individual post in this thread.

I am a Malthusian and that informs most of my opinions (ideology). Current events appear to be affirmation of this theories' relevance. The days of cheap fossil fuel are over. The days of "limitless" resources are over.

1.4 billion of privileged humanity consume 75 percent of all the resources extracted in any given year. The rest is divided up amongst the remaining 4 billion or so. So it would seem that those 4 billion exist to extract said resources so the privileged few (me and you) can consume at an unsustainable level that we are currently accustomed to. Our infinite growth base economic model is a farce. If it was possible to grow an economy infinitely, regardless of one's ideology, it should be possible to fund "entitlement" programs indefinitely. The collapse of these New Deal constructs is not a triumph of "conservative" ideology, but the realization that both sides are oblivious to the end of the line.

We are on the cusp of great change that may result in vast prosperity or entropy and decay. I see no visionary representatives in Washington. I see wedge issue confounding those who recognize this pivotal fallacy and hope to make change gradual to soften the blow. Unfortunately, I also see a coup taking place. When the Supreme Court allowed corporations to contribute as much as they like to political campaigns, my heart fell. This is exactly not what we need. This overturned 200 years of precedent put in place by our Founders restricting campaign contributions from corporate entities. The odds are looking good for entropy, if every iota of leadership has to come from the "private sector".

The reality is that we have been, and will continue to, live theory in practice until we stumble upon a panacea, that is assuming will ever will. But without a doubt, the word of the century will be "survival" and by extension "sustainability". Both sides will work together or die together. This reality necessitates rationality and I see very little of that coming from our self appointed "wise men".

"Right to work is unalienable because work is the first essential condition of life. Society is bound to at least do no harm - there is no point in society if it doesn’t help - and work is vital to health, self-esteem, etc. No society has a right to withhold work."

------------------------

Philosophically I am not sure I agree that there is a "right" that is "inalienable", however, I do agree with your premise. "Our society" is only one side of the subjective coin. Society has also existed to prop up and support aristocracies and tyrants. These societal models have always burned out, because no matter how ignorant the mob, they eventually catch on. Societies without broad based prosperity collapse. The "rational" society for everyone, including the elite, is the lasting one, not one predicated on instant gratification, thus bound to a (violent) end.

Xavier, regarding the rest of your post; Dogma is irrational and in my mind poison. If this societal shift comes, I fear irrationality will rule the day and people will become radicalized, thus rendered unable or unwilling to cooperate.

Gegner said: "Is it your intent to explore the 'scope' of government and the resulting social contract (and possibly lay the groundwork) or are you just 'venting?'"

Gegner, I don't know about Cannon, but I am most certainly venting. I doubt that I will change anyone individuals' mind. At best I can hope for a refining of my own opinions.

Malthus was wrong.

I'm sorry not to have the time right now to bring the solid, rational case against the whole line of erroneous Malthusian doomsaying. I have all the evidences, but have never got them organized. Maybe someday. You should investigate it on your own though, curse914.

Malthusian no-think has been debunked.

There is a growing body of evidence that Malthus's reasoning was 'ahead of its time.' Peak oil/energy is a definite game changer, life as we have come to know it is not possible without cheap, abundant energy.

There is still a lot of 'fossil fuel' in the ground but you have to reduce the number of end users radically if what's left is to remain, er, affordable.

Which is to point out that what's left of the planet's fossil fuel reserves aren't going to last too long if the populations of India and China join the West in hopping behind the wheel to let off a little steam.

Then there is the 'oil we eat'...growing enough food to keep prices low is very energy intensive, not only in powering farm equipment but in the production of fertilizers/pesticides.

I've been trying to coax LC into making a stand but he's too smart for that. He has to be real pleased to see us debate how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Xavier, Malthus was "wrong" when his views were tainted by Dogma and Social Darwinism. He was against contraception, I am not. If your objection to Malthus is his Eugenic tendencies, I can understand your disagreement.

He believed that welfare led to disastrous increases in reproduction. I would only agree when reproduction is incentivized with fat checks for having more children. The best Welfare system is one that is transitional into the workforce, much like Clinton's very successful model. Welfare can level that road to the "pursuit of happiness". Funding for our public education system is rationalized with this very same "leveling of the road" concept.

Malthus was right about finite resources, period. This is not a hard concept to grasp. Technology can only postpone the inevitable, when we discover our continent is much like an Island, like say, an Easter Island. Our planet is reeling under the consumption of 1.4 billion of us consuming over 75 percent of those resources. If all 6 billion of humanity were to consume at that level, we would have reached the breaking point already. Putting all our faith in technology to fix the size of the planet problem; is just that, a form of faith. My presumption is we are not leaving the confines of this planet any time soon, so we had better come up with a socially acceptable economic model that does not require exponential consumption like our current one does.

Since God put us on a planet that cannot sustain infinite life, I would think the answer to the age old question of "how many angel can dance on the head of a pin" is; as many as can fit without knocking each other off. Was God a "Malthusian"?

Gegner, Fossil fuel is used in sooooo very many products, we should be ashamed for burning it.

The Lorax lives! At least until his last meal has run its course.

"Is it your intent to explore the 'scope' of government and the resulting social contract (and possibly lay the groundwork) or are you just 'venting?'"

Neither. But maybe some of that. I want to propagate the idea that our two dominant ideologies are both flawed. Cultivate an awareness of that and popularize the trap we are setting for ourselves by uber promoting flawed extremes that are both poisonous.

On the other hand I am also very interested in other's reasons and rationales supporting their own ideologies.

"REALITY and The Golden Rule must be adopted/recognized/accepted."

But from an ideological pov why should the golden rule be adopted?

Or more to the point why should government, or even HOW could government, or the economy become responsible for providing a job (for every person)?

How or why should government manage income disparity? Based on what formula or value maxim?

Many mammals, insects and birds have social orders very similar to thoise of stratified human societies. Only the degree of wealth and power disparity sets the human models apart. Alpha wold would never allow the cubs to starve so he could become obese. But human Alphas do just that.

What ideology can manage our excess? The Golden rule is a great format, but nobody adopted it 2000 years ago as a guiding principle for society and they never will. Humans are reliant on organic, instinctive value codes that just happen to be bent to their opposing extremes because of partisan polarization and greed/power lust.

"Unemployment is engineered by business, through government, to cow the workforce to accept lower wages. Unemployment can be got rid of at any time, simply by floating the point at which overtime rates kick in. Lowering the overtime point [hrs/wk] drives employers to hire more people rather than pay overtime rates. When employment is full, the overtime point can rise. When unemployment exists [above 2% - there are always people between jobs, and people happily living off capital], the overtime point is lowered until the surplus labour is absorbed.

Right to work is unalienable because work is the first essential condition of life. Society is bound to at least do no harm - there is no point in society if it doesn’t help - and work is vital to health, self-esteem, etc. No society has a right to withhold work."

Unemployment is fueled mostly by automation. Including information automation.

Which is why agriculture shrank as an employment resevoir that consumed half the labor force to one that employs less than 1% of the labor force in just 60 years.

It is also why economies have shifted from largely industrial economies to 70% service economies in less than 30 years.

An economy that is CAPABLE of employing everybody really MUST have a central purpose of creating employment rather than profits, because the two actually are at odds with one another unless creating employment is central to the design of the economy.

Employment is also not a natural state. Subsistence and self employment are natural states. Employment is a man made, artificial arrangement designed to extract value from labor.

Just saying.

Even if we wanted to create an economy that producd full employment as it's first product it is gonna be hard as hell to ever do that unless we regulate automation or adopt a top down economy like the USSR.

"Since this is broadly applicable, I am not going to direct it at any individual post in this thread.

I am a Malthusian and that informs most of my opinions (ideology). Current events appear to be affirmation of this theories' relevance. The days of cheap fossil fuel are over. The days of "limitless" resources are over.

1.4 billion of privileged humanity consume 75 percent of all the resources extracted in any given year. The rest is divided up amongst the remaining 4 billion or so. So it would seem that those 4 billion exist to extract said resources so the privileged few (me and you) can consume at an unsustainable level that we are currently accustomed to. Our infinite growth base economic model is a farce. If it was possible to grow an economy infinitely, regardless of one's ideology, it should be possible to fund "entitlement" programs indefinitely. The collapse of these New Deal constructs is not a triumph of "conservative" ideology, but the realization that both sides are oblivious to the end of the line.

We are on the cusp of great change that may result in vast prosperity or entropy and decay. I see no visionary representatives in Washington. I see wedge issue confounding those who recognize this pivotal fallacy and hope to make change gradual to soften the blow. Unfortunately, I also see a coup taking place. When the Supreme Court allowed corporations to contribute as much as they like to political campaigns, my heart fell. This is exactly not what we need. This overturned 200 years of precedent put in place by our Founders restricting campaign contributions from corporate entities. The odds are looking good for entropy, if every iota of leadership has to come from the "private sector".

The reality is that we have been, and will continue to, live theory in practice until we stumble upon a panacea, that is assuming will ever will. But without a doubt, the word of the century will be "survival" and by extension "sustainability". Both sides will work together or die together. This reality necessitates rationality and I see very little of that coming from our self appointed "wise men".
"

Absolutely right on.

"I've been trying to coax LC into making a stand but he's too smart for that. He has to be real pleased to see us debate how many angels can dance on the head of a pin."

Since I don't have the answers, after spending half a century seeking them, I am relegated to asking the right questions.

If I fuck up that assignment shoot me and make a stew.

"But from an ideological pov why should the golden rule be adopted?"

Why does it appear in every religion?

Do
you
want

to
be
happy?

you?

want
most
possible
happiness?

Not possible if you don't abide by the golden rule. the golden rule is scientific - it is your scientific guide to life - humans' scientific guide to life.

i'm tired.

Malthus even got his maths wrong.

Easter Islander's didn't overshoot. The hidden history is it was plundered, by Europeans mostly. Impossible as it sounds that europeans would ever have plundered other places, yah, i know, wacky, eh?

i'm tired.

read this:

http://www.spunk.org/library/places/germany/sp001630/intro.html

'night for now

our perfectly natural trajectory is toward everyone working fewer and fewer hours.

technology can give everyone increasing leisure time - should be doing this good thing already.

what's impeding progress is economic inequality

how many einstiens and mozarts have we cheated ourselves out of - starved them to death before age 5?

90% of brains on this planet are too poor to get an education right now

THINK

90% of the educated brains are tied up now in the effects of overpayunderpay

LOSE THE POVERTY OF YOUR HORIZONS

or don't. your choice.

but you're underinformed, i guarantee, if you're swallowing the malthusian crappola

ok, nite nite

Xavier, I made it pretty clear that I only agree with the concept of "finite resources." And since you have not articulated a stance, I can only infer that your distrust of Malthus originates with his dogmatic stance on population growth and its resultant extinction bell curve. This has apparently made you unwilling to even entertain the idea he got anything right.

His "math" is wrong? Well sure it was; it was a theory based on the presumptions and context of his era. That still does not change the fact the planet is finite in size. An incorrect prediction of when a resource is going to run out does not change the eventuality that perpetual consumption will result in the zeroing of any given consumed resource. A modern example of fallible predictions would be the prediction that the United States should have already run out of potable water given projected industrial age consumption levels. It turns out water consumption has flattened out. But it was not advancements in technology that led to this situation. As it turns out, the off shoring of our manufacturing which coincidentally consumed vast quantities of water during the production process, offset population growths affect on potable water levels; temporarily.

I read the article and I have read similar articles. Do you think that perpetual growth is possible? It is not addressed in the article and that is the crux of the problem that we all are facing. Eco fascism is another concocted conspiracy to confound, divide and conquer; when instead we should be collaborating. The problem is that collaboration may lead to liberation and that is a dangerously democratic situation as far as our ruling Oligarchs are concerned.

Sorry to have so little time. I'm not arguing for wasting limited resources or for continuing unsustainable practices. Waste and unsustainability are the result of super-extreme overpayunderpay overpowerunderpower.

But why are we worrying about using up resources on a planet that is going to perish in 50 years, give or take 50 years, from the results of allowing wealthpower giants and an inequality factor that resides in the billions and is growing?? It's like cleaning the oven while your kitchen burns down around you.

Keeping everyone stressed and concerned about the use and the number of users is a plan to keep them from seeing the root cause of 99% of unnecessary human suffering: tolerating having wealthpower giants.

People who proclaim they know "Earth's carrying capacity" and "the science is settled" are the ones preposterously claiming to have a crystal ball.

Read Bucky Fuller's Grunch of Giants. Read Dr. Smalley...a guy who already made miracles like those we need.

Al Gore is a despicable liar - ignore Gore.

""But from an ideological pov why should the golden rule be adopted?"

Why does it appear in every religion?

Do
you
want

to
be
happy?

you?

want
most
possible
happiness?

Not possible if you don't abide by the golden rule. the golden rule is scientific - it is your scientific guide to life - humans' scientific guide to life."

That wasn't much of an answer as to why we should adopt the golden rule as our economic mantra. It also didn't explain anything about what doing so would mean.

Nor did it address the challenges inherent in designing an economy that held as it's purpose the creation of jobs and full employment.

I am entirely too shallow to envision a means to concoct an economy, a workable self generating economy, whose operating principle is "do unto others as you would have others do unto you".

Tho it is bizarre, at least the maxim "profit motive" does have organic roots (sustenance) and is easily adopted as a core principle of economics. The golden rule? I can't see it.

Of course I am so shallow that I can't imagine how the golden rule could be a scientific principle either.

Xavier, there is no doubt that concern for the environment can be twisted into a vehicle for manipulation. I did not say, "Do not be skeptical". You did not make your stance clear initially.

I am curious, are you an Anarchist? Because that falls into one of those "pure" modes of thought that I believe, in practice, would be a failure as a large scale societal model. I do not think even a "pure" democracy is functional beyond a specific threshold of participants. It would be a farce to extol its potential for "success" given all knowledge is not equal nor should it be expected to ever be. The goal should be to get as close as possible to a level playing field for all of humanity and for each of us to be skeptical of those who claim to have a corner on the "Market of Truth".

What is successful on a micro scale very well may be a failure on a macro level. And we are living in a macro world with very real and potentially "higher species" extinguishing, macro problems.

There are not enough skeptics in the United States to expose the irreparable damage done to our Republic by concentrated wealth and power. And to reiterate, these few privileged will most certainly use our fears and prejudices against us, guised in the form of dogma that each of us can identify with. The challenge is to sort through the chaff and identify our own crippling prejudices'. Rational discourse is the enemy of this established and entrenched cliché, and disinformation is their weapon.

Do you REALLY taste like Chicken? [LC, we'll only know for sure if we turn you into 'stew'...] Given the givens it may well come to that someday. I, for one, hope to cash in my chip[s] before things are that far gone.

In your introductory statement you say you don't think it is the government's responsibility to provide the individual with employment.

You follow that up by stating government is not about 'equality and justice' for all.

Neither statement is incorrect...mostly because neither is specific enough to support an argument in either direction.

I like your argument regarding unemployment albeit, it is the 'extended' costs of employment that work to make paying 'overtime' cheaper than adding headcount.

Conversely, the 'solution' to the unemployment problem does indeed lie within the workday/week. Yet another puzzle to ponder while our (very) well-paid elected idiots twiddle their thumbs in the nation's capitol (isn't 'gridlock' grand?)

Isn't the 'real' question you (originally) asked "Why Government?' (isn't this the Republicans/Tea Partier's main argument?)

And I think I answered that when I pointed to the 'men with guns' who keep popping up, even after being violently overthrown!

There will always be 'the men with guns' (sticks, spears, arrows..whatever.) The only wildcard is 'who do they answer to'?

Chaos is accurately described as a situation where 'everybody is armed and nobody is in charge.'

Somebody has to be 'in charge' if the mayhem is to cease. This (naturally) leads to the second 'sticky wicket'. Who decides?

There's a subject just chock full of 'disaster waiting to happen!'

It kills me to read people waxing poetic about the screw job perpetrated upon us by the 'founders'. Like there never were nor will there ever be anyone 'so wise' again...idiots!

So, yes, 'government' is 'inevitable', the real puzzle to be solved is creating a system that is 'hijack-proof', one that preserves your 'individual sovereignty'. (That 'fairness across the board' thing.)

Government is "inevitable" in that we appear to require codified societal models when concentrated in large numbers. Xaviers' "Gold Rule" sounds nice, but it is competing with the very real "id" of the individual. This competition demands codification of morality given the confusing nature of abstract though and the drive of the reptilian brain.

Every day we live theory in practice. Anyone who claims to know the "truth" is a liar whether by misunderstanding or willfully. There will be success and failures, but the foundation on which to build this hypothesized utopian society, in my mind, should be based on widespread prosperity. Does this sound like the "Golden Rule"? Sure it does, but the caveat is an admission that this idealism may be unattainable.

“Founding Fathers” has become a colloquialism and as such has become romanticized. Our founders were better in many ways than their predecessors, but no less worthy of skepticism. Even just considering the context that they were wealthy land and slave owners tarnishes the gilding of our Representative Republic.

"You follow that up by stating government is not about 'equality and justice' for all."

actually I didn't.

"Keep in mind that society, government etc are explicit social contracts committed to the stated purpose of providing equality for all, which surely includes basics like economic equality and justice. A goal decidedly at odds with the notion of unlimited wealth disparity, or disparity of privilege and power."

"I like your argument regarding unemployment albeit"

I think Curse914 said that. Busy thread.

"There are not enough skeptics in the United States to expose the irreparable damage done to our Republic by concentrated wealth and power. And to reiterate, these few privileged will most certainly use our fears and prejudices against us, guised in the form of dogma that each of us can identify with. The challenge is to sort through the chaff and identify our own crippling prejudices'. Rational discourse is the enemy of this established and entrenched cliché, and disinformation is their weapon."

This is the point of the thread, thanks for echoing the same point.

It is the fact that idealogues are so rabidly promoting their ideologoes that they continue to do so even while that ideology becomes poisonous to us as a society.

It is important to realize that these ideologies are all flawed. And whatever success we have enjoyed came from a negotiated compromise between them, not a pure dose of either one.

Take China as an example. a near balance of Commyism and free market capitalism. And sustained 9% growth and jobs creation during a world wide recession.

Maybe it's because of what I'm going through...i am so exhausted...but i honestly just do not know what else to try to say to grown men who do not understand that the Golden Rule is 1) stronger than strong, and 2) not optional if you want your greatest happiness. i feel like i'm in some kind of bizzaro parallel universe to even be trying to explain the Golden Rule to adults who are in terrible great danger from not sharing fairly...from trying to keep having the chance to pocket other-earned wealth even though it means their only planet goes kaboom.

so frustrating. didn't you read what i wrote above about the rule being rationally based? Kindergarteners understand what i mean when i talk about the golden rule, what is it with adults??

I'll maybe try again after i rest some.

as for malthusian crap: there are too many people to keep spending the world's wealth on the stuff and projects of killingry/oppression/tyranny-slavery...which waste is caused by wealthpower inequality. there are NOT too many people to live in a world of fairpay justice. the two worlds are NOTHING alike.

perhaps you guys are not aware that things are going to get so terrible that people will be forced into change of some kind? i think we're going to be forced back to our senses - or we really are toast.

remember my piece on collapse in the forum? curse, have you read my stuff in the forum?

off to rest again...sorry...can't be helped.

"Take China as an example. a near balance of Commyism and free market capitalism. And sustained 9% growth and jobs creation during a world wide recession."

A nation can grow very quickly when it has very few environment laws, and sparse labor and product safety laws. We could potentially create a mini boom in states like George and other "cheap labor" states if they adopted the "anything goes" economic model of China (they at least have the desperation part covered).

Just because the Chinese government decapitates a CEO for getting caught poisoning a river does not mean they care or anything will change. It is damage control in the form of feigning populism. One life for the cost of poisoning a river, is pretty good "Return On Investment", if the corporation can continue on its merry way. Eventually this economic model will burn out.

This is just my opinion and I am not inferring that you agree or disagree with any of my statements.

the golden rule says this: if you hurt people they will hurt you back, so if you love yourself, don't hurt people.

stealing their money hurts people. A LOT. You're awash in the violence pollution because you still want to keep the chance to get other-earned wealth. this is just NOT rocket science!

you're supposed to love yourself well enough to not rob others.

they are NEVER going to lay down and just take being robbed. give up that idea because it is wrong. easily provably observably wrong - don't give me any moral relativism shit. you want peace, safety, happiness, then justice is how you get it. and economic justice is the most important justice.

...

I understood the "Golden Rule", and have understood it for quite some time. It is not how it is being explained that is causing the disconnect.

I mean you no ill will, but you are an idealist. You are going to become frustrated if you think you have to convert everyone you come in contact with.

The best that can come from this discussion, if it must come to this, is that you understand where the "other side" is coming from.

To reiterate; the "Golden Rule" is a good foundation, but it is codified in religion and law for a reason. We do not operate intrinsically by this ethical principle. Our id is much more powerful or there would be no need to write this "ethic" onto paper and enforce it. Law would be "natural" and we would just all get along.

I cannot say that I have ever read your posts in the past. I drift in an out of the forum. It was stated that I see a transitional period coming too, so on this point we agree.

In my mind you have allowed your distrust of the messenger (Malthus) to taint any truth that can be garnered from his words. He was an elitist ass in my opinion, but like I have said twice already, the planet is finite, period. I attribute the “Golden Rule” to Christ in much the same way. I don’t like the religion, but I can agree with this select ethic.

You have not stated any identifiable ideology. But if I had to guess, it would be that you are a person of faith. Even a person of faith must use triage to determine whom to operate on first. Not everyone can be saved and not everyone has the right to reproduce if it infringes on those who are already alive. The reality on the ground is, resources are finite, so by extension, so is the life that consumes those resources. I am not saying “kill the poor”, I am saying “better living with less”.

“there are too many people to keep spending the world's wealth on the stuff and projects of killingry/oppression/tyranny-slavery...which waste is caused by wealthpower inequality.”

I agree with this sentiment.

Suppose I will share here what I have remarked upon elsewhere, this thread is pretty impressive, it hasn't disintegrated into a shouting match/pissing contest (yet.)

I doubt you could find this level of discourse elsewhere without a flame war breaking out.

Okay, there are only four of us but still, nice job of keeping it real!