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>>By "democatisation" I mean the following: 1. Every employee at every place of work must have the right to decide every policy of that place of work and 2. Every citizen must have the right to propose, discuss, and vote on, every policy of his State. Whether people use these rights is up to them. In the era of the mobile phone, sms, magnetic cards, and Internet, such a system is technically feasible. I believe this system is on the cards - not only technically - but also historically. Comment
I understand the sentiment and meaning of democracy. I would add
equality and a view for local forms of governance. Would the employee's in a
particular work setting have the right, and final say to determine if they
existed as employee's in their particular work setting? That is to say, what is
the responsibility of the local, regional or national political bodies in
determining if all the current automotive factories are to continue functioning
or is it the decision of the workers internal to these facilities?
Do the employees currently constituting the workforce at nuclear power
plants and nuclear bomb making facilities have the final say in whether their
facility is to continue producing their product or is their policy authority
confined to the internal organization of the work?
I personally believe that there is no need for government to administer the
allocation of resources and human labor in the American economy, given this
stage of the technological regime. On the other hand I feel that a complex of
administrative means and laws need to be enacted to determine what can be
produced and in what quantities.
For example 17 million new vehicles made and distributed throughout America
each year is absurd in my opinion and an enormous waste of resources and human
agency. Would the bureaucracy that is the administrative network of allocation
of resources, human labor, production and distribution of automotive products
have the final say on automotive production?
I personally favor legislative fiat at the national and international level
strictly limiting automotive production. I favor legislative fiat and laws
limiting the standard work day although some people will always want to work
longer as a matter of personal _expression_ and satisfaction.
In our current welfare system, the citizens involved in the program use a
"bridge card" that tracks and makes the allocation of resources more manageable.
We already have an infrastructure capability to meet most needs of the
individual on every level and this system dates back to the introduction of the
"credit card."
I personally dislike the configuration of the industrial process and its
shape and the specific shape of machinery embodied with the bourgeois property
relations. Although I am not longer in the factory system I would vote against
it and advocate shutting down of at least 80% of all the factories in
America. I would vote that the remaining 20% be reconfigured internally
because machinery is designed to pin the individual to the intensive character
of production. Then those actually doing the works are going to have a say on
this matter, including the engineers that design the machines.
Should every citizen be allowed to vote and decide - with equal weight,
over whether or not we continue to build nuclear power plants or do competing
political blocks determine policy or blocks of scientist present the issue? Who
ever presents the issue determines the framework of outcome. Then we are sure to
inherit the legislative form of state governance versus federal forms.
Should individual states be allowed to enact laws and policy that run
counter to the national consensus? What about the death penalty or
abortion? The point is that democracy no matter how one defines it is more than
a notion and always involve the inherent conflict between the mass as individual
will assertion.
Who or what political bodies and authority should write the official
history of America or should an official histories exist as a primer for
children and adults? What of the pharmaceutical industry and its products and
policies? Should the people in the pharmaceutical industries determine what they
produce and how they produce and the average citizen be left with the choice of
consumption?
I cannot solve these questions and others like them but tend to favor
authoritative bodies shaping the framework of the discussion and issues, even
when they are wrong. Me voting over where or if to erect a dam in a certain
area is going to cause a problem because I am being compelled to vote on an
issue I do not really understand and consequently going to favor who I think is
"correct" - my favor political group, "what the wife says," what my buddy
running for political office says or what some scientist puts on line, even if
everyone happens to be wrong.
I like democracy especially because I think I am capable of winning a
popular vote,even when I am wrong. Winning votes does not empower me with the
ability to understand economics and the law of money or capital or how to play
baseball.
"Every employee at every place of work must have the right to
decide
every policy of that place of work," and when I vote that we should not have to work and lose, do I as an individual still have to come to work? What of the trade unions and their administrative bodies? These political bodies are - to a vast degree, by definition standing in opposition to the individual as an individual. Very often the individual is right and the bureaucracy is wrong in fact. Yet it is not possible to abolish any bureaucracy on the basis of
political fiat or human will, or human thinking until a particular
bureaucracy is rendered obsolete by changes in social relations that
undermine the reason for its existence. Technology changes the shape of the
bureaucracy at various stages of the expansion of the technological regime . . .
until its basis in history is eroded.
Bush Jr. understands this and all the mealy mouth promises about reducing
government spending is hitting the wall of reality. The shape of the bureaucracy
and government spending is undergoing change.
Then again I have somewhat of an anarcho-syndicalist history, believe it or
not. On the other hand I favor strong legislative and administrative means for
"my issues."
I honestly believe it is a waste of time to have a national referendum on
whether or not to keep producing and consuming 17 million new vehicles a year in
America. I believe the real resolution resides in changing the property
relations first. Let Toyota have the bulk of the contracts and shut down
Ford and the Chrysler division in America. And General Motors?
Forget the environmental cost . . . who approved those designs . . . Mr. Magoo?
I want these guys in jail for twenty years of ugly cars.
Me . . . I want the guys at the top of the pharmaceutical industry in jail
also. Can I put that on the ballot or do I have to be a "biggie" in a political
group?
Somewhere there is probably a group of folks who would say, I need to go to
jail for advocating the other guy needs to go to jail. What about Coca Cola?
Remember when the people revolted because they changed the formula of Coke?
Jesus Christ.
What happens when it is legislated that Coke have to produce 10 liters of
clean water for one liter of Coke? Don't people in America drink more soda and
coffee than water and wonder why they live on the toilet. I say we make Coke do
the right thing by legislative and administrative means and to hell with the
Coke drinkers.
Now the Coke drinkers will be out to get my ass. Now it as President I have
the veto power and use it, does this not mean operating against an enormous mass
of individual wills?
We are going to end up with something no one wants but is a rough composite
of what everyone wants. And it is going to be my fault. Really.
Melvin P.
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