Pretty simple question: Is there such thing as a utopian government, or do we have to settle for a best possible answer?
The problem with ‘ideal’ anything is getting anyone to agree what constitues ‘ideal’
ideal government
everyone works their ass off all day every day for no pay or benefit
everyone is given a daily stipend of what they “need”
of course us in the “ruling class” are exempted
and “need” is decided explicitly by us in the ruling class
if one refuses to work, one is killed
democracy? sure… but ours is the only party on the ballot
come be a socialist/communist slave for the benefit of (the few in the elite ruling class) er “everyone”…
-Imp
Imp,
I generally agree with you but at first I thought that you were describing current US capitalism! I’m not joking either.
Hey, as they said in the former Soviet Union “we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.”
Or they can win an all expenses payed trip to Uncle Joe’s Gulag.
The ideal government exists……only in your mind.
But I’m kind of positively inclined towards Timocracy.
Why do people that do not indulge in negative acts towards others have to be governed at all?
If you are involved in a situation where somebody perpatrates an abusive act you should be free to respond with whatever response you desire, only through ‘policing’ you, and yours, can you ever hope to end this madness. If you think the doughnut eaters are more concerned with you than getting in their 8 hours and cashing a retirement check, you are delusional, those types don’t last long at that job, they are deliberately weeded out in favor of those that don’t question the status quo. That ‘protect and serve’ doesn’t mean you, it means the politico that promises to take care of those protecting and serving the established power structure.
It is not in the best interest of those with power to have a peaceful, prosperous population, they don’t need politicians.
If punishing criminals was going to end crime, it would have done it when ‘prison’ was the holding cell outside the arena.
As long as the population is shown by the authority that violence is an acceptable means to attain goals, a portion of the population will respond with violence to attain it’s goals.
So, any ‘system’ you would like to see set up in the civilization can be easily tested as to it’s viability.
Does it force a portion of the population to do things against their will?
If it does, it has a ready made conflict to rally troops around on both sides, and is therefore no different than the current system, excepting whatever issues it happens to take the positive side of.
It is in the best interests of a peaceful, prosperous population to eliminate those who force others to do whatever they don’t want to do, only then can those who chose to act right live free of those who chose to force their existence on others. I should be free of any knowledge of your existence, until we agree that I should know more about you, and vice versa, you shouldn’t gather knowledge of my existence without my permission.
You pay an unimaginable amount of imbedded taxes because the ruling authority says that it’s power is more important than that portion of your life it takes to earn that tax.
Everthing in the stores is priced to pay the taxes of all those involved in getting it in the stores to sell. This increase the prices tremendously while hiding the vast amounts of productivity lost to the ruling elites.
All because the population thinks that this evil is better than the other evil.
The ideal government can never exist as long as it props it’s self up through intimidation and coercion.
The best government is a dictatorship with you at its head. Even tho it sucks compared to the one with me at its head.
Impenitent
Sounds great…if this is how the “ruling class” lives.
Imp, let me show you how to kill many birds with one stone.
Part of the assumption that “working one’s ass off” is bad is the accompanying fact that 75% of a Capitalist society are fat glutonous pigs who couldn’t stand up for ten minutes without losing their breath. I, on the other hand, can run eight miles, swim two, and frame a one-thousand square foot apartment with four workers in one day. So yes, when you are a disgusting blob of fat, I suspect your “ass would be off” by merely sitting at a desk for eight hours. Pity. Tsk…tsk.
Also, one should not have to earn medical benefits. They are in universal supply for every living being. On top of that, once everyone is no longer a blob of fat, half the medical services will not be needed in the first place, because people would be more healthy.
And neither does one work for “pay.” They work for goods, which, according to natural dispositions and specializations of different people, are traded among them. One doesn’t “buy” anything, they trade through agreement. “Money” can be cheated through credit, credit creates debts between blobs of fat and healthy workers. Pity. Tsk…tsk.
One isn’t “given” anything by another who regulates what is earned. What is needed is produced according to capacities and requirements generated from the entire field of workers. There are no “bosses” or wages. There is no give or take. There is exchange and no debts created.
There are no ruling classes that do not work. For example, the worker and the doctor are equally important, although the worker’s energy expenditure is greater than the doctors, as he is more physically adept, the doctor is more intelligent, which is required for the medical science. The two combined together rule each other, and no one gets ahead of the other. The doctor doesn’t own what the worker does not, and vice-versa, because they own everything mutually.
Nine times out of ten, a refusal to work originates from the psychological humiliation of some class in comparison to another. For example, the grocery bagger is more likely to quit his job when Rockefeller comes through the line and laughs at him. Get rid of Rockefeller, and bagger-boy has pride in his work.
And finally, we have the typical American (Imp), in a reaction to the failings of past dictators, assert that any and all possible socialisms and communisms will equally fail because they have failed in the past. A slippery-slope…the Capitalist’s smoking gun.
And once again, kids, the moral of our story is:
Capitalism creates the problems that it needs solutions for, and uses those problems to defend itself from itself, like a blob of cancerous fat tripping over its own stomach.
Pity. Tsk…tsk.
No problem though. I don’t do politics. I just observe what’s happening.
This is something I wrote a while ago. It represents my thought on ideal states.
Timocracy
I am currently reading an interesting book by Victor Davis Hanson “The Other Greeks†which explains the roots of the Hellenic greatness and the agrarian roots of western civilization in general.
I believe the juxtaposition of modern Democratic states with ancient Greek ‘polis’ [city-states] and their Timocratic system, where citizens participated in the political system if and only if they owned a certain amount of farmed land , reveals why western civilization has become decadent and spoiled in comparison and exposes all that is wrong with modern western democracy.
Here is a brief outline of my conclusions thus far:
1] There was a minimum amount of land ownership which ensured full citizenship and also a maximum amount, above which it was not permitted to go.
This ensured that the citizen farmer had a vested direct interest in the survival and well-being of the state and kept him interested in the political circumstances, kept him informed and kept him participating. Also the upper limit ensured that no single individual would corrupt the whole through wealth and overt influence.
Living today with the lobbying powers of certain groups, the apathy and ignorance of entire populations and the non-participation of a large percentage of the citizenry we can see the benefits of Timocracy here.
2] The individual was self-sufficient and self-reliant, growing his own food, constructing his own tools, and living by the sweat of his own brow by toiling the earth rather than by using others.
This honest and autonomous subsistence which cooperated with others in common goals creating the city-state ensured a citizenry of hard working, dignified, down-to-earth individuals that knew the value of things.
Today with the vast amounts of pampered, lazy individuals reliant on governmental or citizenry handouts, knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing and seeking the easy route in all areas of interest we can, again, see the benefits of Timocracy.
3] The obligation for military service of the citizen/farmer/hoplite created men taking responsibility for their own defense and the actions of their own government.
Military service also embedded a sense of honor, pride and discipline within each man.
Today we can witness the results of undisciplined minds that do not comprehend the concept of limits and the creation of classes that rely, for their own defensive needs, on the manipulation and coercion of underprivileged masses that are asked to kill and die on their behalf while they and their own sit comfortably miles away in relative safety.
This absence of a direct accountability or the escape from the consequences and the cost for the decisions taken creates foolhardy citizens who enter risky endeavors with little thought or concern since they will not directly pay the price for their own opinions.
If it were only the upper or middle-class children that were forced to go to battle in Iraq, for example, would it have taken place?
4] The practice of working the land created a certain kind of psychology.
Being one that has experienced farm work I can state with certainty that it forces a balanced, conservative, careful disposition that accepts his fate but fights against it and disciplines him to a strict life regiment which negates lethargy and laziness.
This battle of man against the forces of nature, humbles him, makes him cunning and patient and forces him to become creative and constructive.
Furthermore the benefits of physical labor ensures a fitness of body- a necessary part for the creation of healthy mind, as the Greeks themselves believed as a consequence of their agrarian roots {Healthy mind in a healthy body}- and hardens a man to the toils and tribulations of life in general.
Today the lethargic, laziness devoid of any sense of meter or balance has created obese, flawed weaklings expecting everything, demanding all, resisting nothing disciplined to nobody but only to the needs of their instincts
External phenomena are often the manifestations of internal health or sickness. We can see today how the aesthetic exteriors of individuals represent and internal unhealthiness of mind and then compounds the problem by inflating it.
It is necessary to mention that Timocracy was related to Democracy but had elitist leanings which made it a cross between a Democratic and Oligarchic system and was, for this reason, a precursor for the later development of Democracy in ancient Athens.
This exclusion of the majority of a states population because of a lack of land ownership, in my view, filtered out individuals without the basic ability or intelligence to own a small piece of land and farm it successfully thusly denying access to all without a certain mental standard or a psychological disposition, made the act of participation in political life a privilege not a right to be disrespected and taken lightly, as today, and imposed a sense of responsibility in the citizenry.
Also the limitation of land ownership ensured that each citizen, whether wealthy or middle-class, had to work the land, earn his living by toiling and minimized the amount of civil servants and other supporting classes, such as artists, teachers, governmental officials, bureaucrats of all kinds, merchants and yes even philosophers etc.
Was Timocracy created by a guy named Tim?
If I founded a mode of government could I call it Frankocracy?
Satyr:
I want a list of three philoso-politico authors that you would direct someone to if they wanted a piece of your mind.
Yes, bartender, I’ll have what Satyr’s having.
You come up with some the best shit I have ever heard. I need to know this stuff…so give me directions. And hurry up, we ain’t gettin’ any younger.
détrop
Read ‘The Other Greeks’ by Hanson.
Nietzsche, of course.
Marx, just for balance.
Neil Postman.
Baudrillard, if possible.
Plato, obviously.
And as many as the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers you can get your hands on.
Hmm…
Another question from The Question:
Can we really rely on any form of government to reign in the worse aspects of human behavior or will human nature eventually lead the government back to an undesirable state?
Yes. And that’s the paradox, isn’t it?
A successful system inevitably creates the circumstances of its own demise.
The success of Timocracy resulted in large numbers of supported peoples. Teachers, artists, philosophers, sailors and so on.
They eventually sought to attain a piece of the pie for themselves. This lead to Democracy and eventually to this Oligarchy masking as Democracy.
The thing about human creations is that they always deteriorate back to natural balances and rules.
Nature’s form of government is and always be Oligarchy. The few, or the one, dominating the many.
“Man must be overcome.†Remember?
But towards which direction?
That is what all the debating and philosophizing is about.
nice… blame capitalism for greedy human nature…
no matter…
-Imp
Since people have different opinions on what government would be best, perhaps it would be ideal if different places had different forms of government, and borders were open to let people live under what government they want. As long as each government supports natural law.
I asked for three, Satyr. If I followed that order I’d be so goddamn old by the time I got half-way through I’d need a magnifying glass just to see the frickin’ page.
Essentials in any philosophers kit. And I’ve got the family edition.
I’m on it like white on rice.
Can’t I just read about him. Seriously, the guy only wrote a five-thousand page book…and that’s the shortest one he’s got. Surely somebody somewhere can give me the meat and potatos of it all. Remember, I’m trying to do this in one lifetime.
Outward into the far reaches of space. Where else is there to go?
Look, we aren’t doing this for us, we’re doing it for our children’s children’s children’s children.
Damn, try to say that three times fast.
But here’s the plan. I’ll give you the quick rundown.
Eventually humanity will develop the technology to travel back in time and download the memory of every human being that ever existed, into a chip, then, go back to the present and upload that memory into a clone. That’s how you raise the dead. Repeating this cycle infinitely, everyone lives forever.
Presto! Immortality.
But if we fuck it up, we’re screwed. It might just be a one shot deal. That’s why we need to save the Earth from premature destruction, so we can develop that technology after colonizing the galaxy.