Obama or McCain - who would you vote for?

[Vic Dale]

I'm curious how you would propose a country be organized and run. Realistically, not some silly utopia that won't fit actual human nature.

There is no mystery to this question.

Human society ran for more than 1 million years without prisons, laws, ground rent or compulsion to work for others. This modern society is only about 6 to 7,000 years old and begins at a time when humans began to organise the harvesting of grain to produce a surplus of the daily food needs of society. From that point a surplus of food became available to be stored and held back from society so that a leisure class could not only live off it themselves but also use it to buy the labour of others.

The main visible difference between those times and the situation today, apart from a vastly developed means of production is the state. The state covers the body politic, the armed forces, laws prisons and it also oversees aid to the needy. This body however began simply as a menas to keep those who had nothing separate from those who held society's grain and to protect their property rights against possible attacks from those who might try to help themselves.

If you walk abroad carrying your wealth with you, you'll need a big stick to keep you and your money safe. The state is simply a very complicated version of the big stick. It is there to protect private property. Incidentally, private property is quite distinct form personal possessions. If you get your wallet stolen with theb month's wages in it the theif if caught will get a fine or if a repeat offender he'll get a few months in prison. If her robs a bank (without violence) and gets away with a few thousand pounds he will go away for a very long time. Banks are private concerns and their money is private property, not personal possession.

If the total power in the means of production in any modern society were divided by the head, it would be found that only a limited amount of wealth can be produced by any one individual and certainly it would be impossible for an individual person to create wealth at the rate of £1000 per hour, yet we find that individuals exist who have the ability to spend at that rate and more in any week of the year and still have wealth by the plenty to buy other things.

When some individuals have so much and the vast majority have so little, focus naturally turns to what these rich pople have done to justify such lavish living styles and such obscene wealth. It is the job of the politician to draw attention away from this concern and make people think they are having an influence to even out society's imbalances. Well if we are supposed to embrace democray (the will of the people) then lets have more of it.

I would propose a society where everyone works for a living and where society's development is worked out on a daily basis on the factory floor and other workplaces. This was possible even in the days of the horse and cart where society was run and managed according to the needs of a dispersed ruling class. If they could communicate their wishes then the same must be true for the whole fo society to have their daily input.

The leaders should be paid no more than the wages of those they represent and they should be subject to short term recall, so that their methods and actions are judged day-to-day and if they are found to be no good they are got out forthwith. This applies equally to those who think to line their own pockets through abuse of their position.

Obama speaks of change, yet that change is almost guarranteed to be so minor that it will hardly touch the daily lives of the vast majority of Americans, who work long hours and struggle to pay the bills - god help them if they get seriously ill, better to die there and then rather than see the family lose it's home.

Obama will change very little and Mc Cain will carry on much as before. The head of the most powerful nation on the planet will not use that power in the interests of the vast majority, but will maintain the status quo, which ensures the continued concentration of wealth in the most undeserving hands and deny the most deserving, who work the hardest and produce the wealth of society a job a decent living.

I am listening to Obama right now and all I can hear is "Rise to the challenge." etc etc etc ad-infinitum. He speaks but he says - Nothing.

Vic Dale

[Bgile]

Vic,

All you have done is espouse the Utopia I referred to. In the real world you can't do that. All people are not reasonable and if you, the Utopian, throw away your national govt and eliminate your military, etc what do you think Putin is going to do? He will take over your country and you will work as his slave instead of having the limited freedoms you have now. If not Putin, someone else.

Utopias are fine if you could somehow magically get everyone to agree to it and charismatic leaders who want your stuff would somehow never come to power and control more and more resources, and you didn't have to band together for the common defense.

The Nation state is IMO the inevitable result of the Human Condition. You can't just make them go away because you want them to. My question pertained to how you would achieve this Utopia without being able to wave a magic wand.

[Bgile]

A question of perspective:

http://www.bobhenneman.info/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1632

[Vic Dale]

Vic,

All you have done is espouse the Utopia I referred to. In the real world you can't do that. All people are not reasonable and if you, the Utopian, throw away your national govt and eliminate your military, etc what do you think Putin is going to do? He will take over your country and you will work as his slave instead of having the limited freedoms you have now. If not Putin, someone else.

Utopias are fine if you could somehow magically get everyone to agree to it and charismatic leaders who want your stuff would somehow never come to power and control more and more resources, and you didn't have to band together for the common defense.

The Nation state is IMO the inevitable result of the Human Condition. You can't just make them go away because you want them to. My question pertained to how you would achieve this Utopia without being able to wave a magic wand.

Don't think for one moment that I am posing this scenario within a single nation's boundaries. Human society must reach beyond the boundaries of the nation state. This is NOT utopian, beacuse of the uniformity which modern production has painted onto the populations of the world. Today more than at any time in human history, a development in one part of the globe is felt wthin minutes in the rest and each nation, individual in flag and language alone these days, have a uniform response to change. This applies to the workplace as well as the floor of the stockexchanges.

Through such lightening reflexes via the interlinking of computers and satellite assisted telcomunications, the idea of revolution can spread very fast and once unseated the ruling class would have no means of reasserting their control. Some would feel uncomfortable being free from the chains of millenia of constraint by a class who do no work, but so too does the recidivist who finds comnfrot in the confines of his cell, on release from prison. Recisdivism is a form of mental illness and in time I am sure that dogged adherence to the class system of human life would be seen also to be a form of mental illness.

You can bet that Obama will not be presenting ideas along these lines, even though he plays on the uniform feelings of workers in the USA and finds an echo not just among American workers, but among workers the world over.

The question is; Do we workers trust ourselves enough to actually take control? This question will gradually resolve itself as we see in coming months and years perhaps, how little the current ruling class do to meet their responsibilities.

Vic Dale

[Bgile]

OK, well, I don't believe that could ever happen. There are almost as many ideas about the ideal as there are inellectially curious people. What you describe sounds like the tyranny of the mob to me. Right now, I'm insulated from the doings of my govt by layers of bureacracy. You want to replace that with a small group that I can't get away from if I don't like what 51% of them want to do. What makes you think the "factory floor" won't be controlled by the strongest and most brutal person there?

[RF]

Are there any people of color or women in Parliament? I honestly don't know.

Which of your points is proved by an Obama election? I think I missed it.

If Obama is elected I think he will owe it in to some degree to the economic disaster. That helped Clinton get elected. "It's the economy, stupid".

Yes there ''coloured'' MP's in Britain, not just Labour but Conservative as well.

I wasn't making a specific point about Obama being elected, I was raising the issue over other people referring to his skin colour and being ''black.''

[lwd]

.... To your words above, yes, I am kind of slurring the South, and have every right to if I wish since I am a resident of it, ha ha. End of that discussion ...

Right perhaps. IS it accurate maybe but also maybe not. As stated it an opinion based ona anecdote. Since I've lived in Washington state, Mississippi, Virginia, and Michigan. I could claim greater knoweldge based on that but it is still IMO insufficient to make any such claims. I don't particularly like to insult people (individuals or groups) with out at least a decent basis in fact.

I also don't acknowledge your right to terminate a discussion. Unless you are a moderator here.

[lwd]

...Human society ran for more than 1 million years without prisons, laws, ground rent or compulsion to work for others.

This assumption appears to be counter factual. First of all there's the question of whether or not huma society is even a million years old. From my understanding of the archeological record it's not. While early societies did without prisons they did either kill or coast out those who broke the "rules" too badly or to often. As for laws while they may not have been codified and written down they certainly existed indeed they seam to exist in chimpansee societies so are probably prehuman as well. As for compulsion to work for others it also exist in animals other than man and partricularly in primates. The individual place in the group is often dependent on what he/wwhe contributes and that's a for of compulsion....

The main visible difference between those times and the situation today, apart from a vastly developed means of production is the state...

There are other differences as and perahps more important. The population density for one.

...Incidentally, private property is quite distinct form personal possessions. If you get your wallet stolen with theb month's wages in it the theif if caught will get a fine or if a repeat offender he'll get a few months in prison. If her robs a bank (without violence) and gets away with a few thousand pounds he will go away for a very long time. Banks are private concerns and their money is private property, not personal possession.

YOur distinction and example appear to be artificial and not necessarily universal or even valid.

Your foundation isn't sand it's quicksand.

[Bgile]

Yes. We see here assumptions being treated as facts and then used to support a postion. If you are building a structure you don't just take a random piece of wood and assume that it will hold up under the load. Debate is all about facts, logic, and reason.

Some things are self evident. You seem to be one of those people who require certain proof of anything that doesn't fit your wold view, instead of just taking the obvious at face value.

[lwd]

All too often things that are "obvious" or "self evident" are wrong. People who argue from that bases often can't support their opinion with facts and logic. If I see something state that doesn't seam obvious to me then I question it and if the answer is "it's obvious" rather than fact and logic you aren't likely to convince me. Another contributer to this thread is a rather classic example.

[Bgile]

All too often things that are "obvious" or "self evident" are wrong. People who argue from that bases often can't support their opinion with facts and logic. If I see something state that doesn't seam obvious to me then I question it and if the answer is "it's obvious" rather than fact and logic you aren't likely to convince me. Another contributer to this thread is a rather classic example.

Most of the time things that are "obvious" or "self evident" are right. People often use those terms to save time. By arguing from a "prove it" point of view you impede the discussion with trivia or (more often) the person just gives up from exasperation. For example, if I were to say that most 8" guns could shoot over 28Kyds, you could challenge that and require me to give proof. I might go to navweaps, wasting my time in doing so. Then you would probably say I have to have more sources than just one. And so on.

I'm not sure why I even made this post. You are quite logical in some of your posts and I keep hoping you will see my point, but I'm probably wasting my time. You will probably pick this post apart also.

[lwd]

....Most of the time things that are "obvious" or "self evident" are right. People often use those terms to save time.

When this is the case it's usually easy to find data to support the postion.

By arguing from a "prove it" point of view you impede the discussion with trivia or (more often) the person just gives up from exasperation. For example, if I were to say that most 8" guns could shoot over 28Kyds, you could challenge that and require me to give proof. I might go to navweaps, wasting my time in doing so. Then you would probably say I have to have more sources than just one. And so on...

I would think that my posting show that this is not the case. For instance if I thought you were wrong or that the above might not be correct what I woudl do is do a quick check on the internet. If I found evidence that you were correct I probably wouldn't post anything unless someone else questioned you. If I found evidence that you were wrong I would say so and post said evidence. If I couldn't find evidence one way or the other I would ask for some. In the latter case it's as much to have the sources as anything. Indeed this particular example is one I might research a bit just becasuse it has roused my curiousty. It's also worth remembering that more people usually read these boards than post on them. Providing sources gives them leads if they have a question on or related to the topic.

[Vic Dale]

OK, well, I don't believe that could ever happen. There are almost as many ideas about the ideal as there are inellectially curious people. What you describe sounds like the tyranny of the mob to me. Right now, I'm insulated from the doings of my govt by layers of bureacracy. You want to replace that with a small group that I can't get away from if I don't like what 51% of them want to do. What makes you think the "factory floor" won't be controlled by the strongest and most brutal person there?

There is no idealsim here. I am speaking of a clash of a titanic class forces with sufficient force to change society.

Capitalism dislodged the centuries-old rule of the monarchs - and good riddence to them. Now that capitalism has taken human society as far as it can, having clearly reached it's limits, it is time to replace it. This question will re-surface again and again and there isn't a blind thing anybody can do about it.

We have seen the disaster inflicted during the "Great Sub-Prime Ambivalence" where money has been allowed to create money without a sound base of production and that is the modern capitalism. We have been told for years that nations don't need a manufacturing base as long as the finance sector is bringing home the bacon. Well it isn't and it wasn't and now we are the ones who will have to pay.

Believe me, this is going to cost avery working person the world over and the social tension in nation after nation will reach boiling point. There will come a time when the only resort of theose who rule will be armed force and the minute they try it the armed forces will split along calss lines sure as eggs is eggs. The army is staffed by workers - men and women whose families are workers too. They won't shoot at their own kind.

This is the furture scenario which we would all do well to take account of and in time the only w question worth answering is; Whose side are you on?

What Mc Cain and Obama say or don't say, will pale against the tide of discontent which is brewing and when Obama says "It is time for change." His perception from a position of wealth and priviledge is vastly different to that of the millions of workers who are and who will suffer terrible financial ruin in the months and years to come.

Vic Dale

[Karl Heidenreich]

As we say here in Costa Rica:

VIVA REAGAN!

[RF]

Unfortunately ex-President Reagan is no longer in the land of the living, Karl.