an MOQ based political system would start with a
pragmatic analysis of the various systems we have
already tried.
i just watched 'looking for fidel', a documentary
about fidel and cuba by oliver stone. it was an
eye-opener. it made me realise that even though i
thought i was immune to the propaganda around
socialist Cuba and fidel, i was not.
Cuba is a very important political experiment. a small
country under huge economic pressure has achieved
general education and health statistics that are the
envy of most countries, including the US, the UK and
Australia.
another film: 'the lives of others' set in late soviet
east germany also springs to mind. a simple pragmatic
test of the efficacy of a political system is
mentioned in the film: suicide rate. in the repressive
east german regime the suicide rate, including many
artists and intellectuals, increased markedly. this
fact is unavoidably condemnatory of that particular
system.
but in Cuba i think we would find a suicide rate that
was less than most countries.....i will check that
out.
anyway assuming this is so then we can perhaps better
pragmatically analyse what works and what does not
within 'socialist' political systems.
again we can look the same way at capitalist
experiments. japan and the US are very different
versions of capitalism. there is much difference in
the social statistics of the two countries, mostly in
favour of japan i would guess.
of course political systems don't exist in a vaccuum.
cultural differences play a role - history, religion,
geography. these need to be considered in any
analysis. likewise any recommendations would have to
be similarly sensitive to extra-political factors.
but we are being pragmatic here; we are not declaring
absolute truths - we are suggesting an approach that
would be workable and flexible.
so....
society, according to the MOQ, exists to serve and be
served by individuals.
there is a balance point here. a point of harmony
between the serving and receiving. society is a
transaction between the group and the individual. a
political system has to establish and maintain this
balance.
a political system is an idea, an abstract idea. it is
of the intellectual level. it is moral that the system
has the power to check purely social phenomena like
'the market'.
it is also moral that the system be receptive to DQ,
which is to say encouraging of innovation. money is a
major incentive here....but there are many others.
necessity springs to mind...(see cuba)
so how do you keep it simple? how do we sketch the
outline of a new hybrid model and not get bogged down
in destructive argument straight away?
we need to stay true to the intellectual level, whose
relative dominance we are supposed to be helping
establish.
society feeds off people; the intellect feeds off
soceity - groups of people. the intellectual level
relies on the contributions - the interactions - of
many. when we stubbornly hold old positions and do not
accomodate and evolve with new ideas we are not
helping the intellect - we are helping the giant.
for instance i used to believe that welfare was a huge
step forward in society. it seems obvious that having
a safety net is a good thing, and in many ways it is.
however what i have seen happen in my lifetime is that
the dole becomes a very negative thing in people's
lives, breeding alienation and resentment.
it would be better in my opinion to create work, in a
keynesian manner. that is everyone who wants to work
should be able to have meaningful employment. this is
simply the wise use of a resource. to do otherwise is
wasteful, and detrimental to the 'resource' wasted.
i have been on the dole several times, as have many of
my friends( work seems to come in 3 or 6 month sets
nowadays...at least for some). i would much rather be
out doing much needed reforestation work than doing
nothing and getting 200 a week.
there is always work to be done. a government, a
system, should be able to dynamically respond to that
- should be *creative*.
the market can be creative to an extent here - eg
carbon trading, but it is not enough!! this point is
crucial. carbon trading will not encourage the careful
use of mixed plantings of endemic species by itself.
instead we will probably have monocultures of fast
growing species. it is the role of intellect, which is
to say *the common good*, to supervene here. it will
cost more and take more time to establish truly
biodiverse forests but the payoff is far more valuable
than money.
intellect guiding society results in the common good.
society exploiting the intellect results in the
giant's good; and the common woe.
intellect is a function of society. that is it feeds
off *groups of people*. intellect is best served by
maximising the group that is able to bring ideas to
the table. that is, *participative democracy* is the
first defining attribute of an MOQ based political
system.
perhaps the internet allows this to happen on a global
scale - which is necessary for the successful
integration of regional, national and international
issues.
but we need to be more sensitive to the local scale
for it is here that we can act concretely. it is here
that we need to foster that element that is most
glaringly absent from western life (especially in the
'burbs): communality.
true communality, the model of all of the world's
long-lived socieities, is indispensable. it is the
second defining attribute of an MOQ-based political
system. without communality true participative
democracy is impossible.
we are all brothers and sisters. our cousins extend
across all life forms. our parents are the planets and
the stars themselves. only through communality does
the common good become an obvious fact - a lived
truth. in isolation we are prey to the mind machine -
we lose sight of the interdependence of all.
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