Land of Liberty - my view
Promoted by Brendan for weekend discussion
Individual liberty to me means freedom from coercion by both the government and other individuals. It is the most important role of any government, by the people and of the people, to uphold and defend these individual liberties against anyone who would try to take them away.
These are my views only and I've written on this before. The following is what I want my ideal country and its citizenry to look like.
All citizens of this imaginary Country, from the time the become adults, would be required to purchase all the possible insurance for Welfare, Medical, Car, House, etc. It would be illegal to work without all those deductions. All services would be private with the exception of a defensive military force, police, and fire department. All of the infrastructure would be private. The school system would be private and correspondingly there would be no requirement to be educated. Retirement accounts fully dependent on the individuals.
The society of perfect personal responsibility. You are what you make of yourself and no more. Your wellbeing is fully dependent on what you provide for yourself.
Recognizing that there would always be deadbeats, failures, sick, retarded, etc who would not be able to survive in such a society it is only fair to establish a base floor of livelihood for this country. Thus for those who were not able to pay for the insurance from the beginning, there would be government provided basic housing, food, medical, and stipend for clothing and other basic necessities and entertainment.
A flat tax would be levied on individuals' incomes to pay for the Military, Police, Fire Dept, and basic welfare for those who cannot work and achieve. In fact anyone would be allowed to go on that basic welfare but the government provided subsistence would be very bleak and well basic that it would be infinitely better to try to make something of yourself if possible and actually earn the money.
There would be no redistribution schemes either from the rich to the poor, or from the young to the old, or from anyone to anyone else. There would be no limits on lawful achievement, nor would there be government subsidies for anything or any intereference in the market.
There would be no governmental protection against discrimination on any basis nor any guaranteed holidays that private business would have to comply with. That would be up to individual employers and competitive market.
Penalties for white collar fraud would be similar to penalties for violent crime. The private prison system would be able make profit by being able to require convicts to work for their stay. Any infringement on anyone else's individual wellbeing would be punishable by fines or jail time, including environmental infringement.
Individual rights to liberty, unlimited achievement, property, justice, personal defense, and government protection from internal and external threats would be inviolate and unchangeable through legislature as basic human rights.
I could write more but I think this enough of a basis for an excellent country fair to everyone, affording no one any special rights or privileges. Ultimately it's up to you to make something of yourself and if you fail it is your fault.
- Ender's diary
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Comments :
What country fits your description?
Israel is more socialized than the US. Most industrialized rich countries are even more socialized than the US.
Third World countries fit more your description. Where the gap between rich and poor is great and the poor has no power and the rich is blessed with many low paid workers they can exploit.
Except that third world countries don't have
the base floor he includes for those people who can't (or won't) earn more.
I don't think any country fits his description, FWIW.
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
No money for base floor
If you have that system, there will be no money for the base floor.
I wrote out a hypothetical economic system
when I first started here that Ender mostly agreed with (which was probably our last agreement on political matters).
You can read it here if you are interested.
As Brendan said this isn't anything currently practiced.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
I remember your post, I liked it, and
it seemed like conservatives were fine with the idea of a basic safety-net minimum level of housing/food/medical care, with extra being earned.
It would be worth working out the details at some point of your and Ender's proposals, to the degree that they are similar -- as you say below, it's a bit unfair to criticize the ideal due to lack of specificity but at the same time I'd like to see just what such a society would look like in practice.
Do you think this topic could be transformed into a debate? It seems like there are enough people on both "sides" and we could at the same time hammer out some of the specific questions (courts, regulation, etc). Might be fun.
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
Not sure about the debate
I think something more grounded and generic might be better, at least at first.
I do agree that working out the details would be interesting. I wouldn't mind revisiting my initial idea and trying to flesh it out. If nothing else I might use it as he basis of some freelance writing at some point.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Ender's Dickensian Oiigarchy Distopian Nightmare
I'm sure you could describe a worse form of government, but it would take some doing.
So, people who are on welfare would be unable to purchase insurance and therefore unable to work. Unless of course, the minimum stipend was sufficient to cover this mandatory worker's insurance AND still provide sufficient money for clothing, food, child care and basic transportation necessary to enter the work force. In which case, why not just cover the insurance for everyone (since you plan on providing all the service of the insurance to the indigent and you REQUIRE that the non-indigent cover their own basic healthcare before you let them work).
Your criminals would refuse to work (Or what? You going to let them go if they don't pay for their stay? Imprison them for longer for not paying their monetary debt to their jailer? Does the jailer actually get to decide how much to charge/pay his captive servants? It is in their best interest to keep the hard workers longer and let the lazy ones go as soon as possible. Or do you just let their owners underfeed them or beat them when they are lazy.
The slum-lords would bid on the right to house and feed the poor who were unable to afford worker's insurance and would naturally put them in the cheapest area possible; which means far away from the jobs. They'd build few roads to those areas (why bother? Where's the profit in building roads to the poor? Why have buses take the poor who can't afford worker's insurance elsewhere? Just ship them their food and collect your pay for doing so.
It wasn't the free market that ended Jim Crowe laws or the Ghettos, so they'd still be around. So you are against racism, anti-semitism and homophobia in your own business, but still think it should be up to the individual owners. Of course, if the other businesses decide to refuse to sell their products to those ( BLANK)-lovers and drive them out of business... well that's the free market speaking. (And don't say that would never happen as it has happened a great deal in even recent history)
It sounds like
the insurance would be deducted from the paycheck. It wouldn't make sense to require it upfront, or nobody could get a job without someone else paying the initial insurance upfront. Since the society described basically depends on workers covering those who don't, it would make sense to make it as easy as possible for people to transition into working.
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
That's the only thing that didn't make sense?
But the free market would set the price for all of this insurance, which would either price it out of many entry level jobs (remember, no minimum wage here!) or make it so shoddy as to be next to useless.
What would really happen is the cost of minimum insurance would set a de facto, legally enforced, minimum wage which businesses would get around by 'subcontracting' to the undocumented 'uninsured' in the same way they currently do to the undocumented immigrants.
Sorry, this is a design for a catastrophe of epic proportion.
Why give
money for food to the poor? Why not just feed them soylent green - they'll be happy and fat and won't be using that money to purchase drugs and other vices.
But seriously, the system you describe Ender is obviously land of liberty for those with wealth and the feudal servitude for just about everybody else. Why would any people vote to have a system like that established against their own interest?
Sic semper tyrannis
fire department? Public goods?
Your support for a fire department seems out of line with the rest of this scheme. For example, police and military protect you from other people...but a fire department protects you from fire. Why shouldn't that be private and voluntary?
It seems like you are taking a "public goods" attitude towards the fire department, but avoiding that justification for anything else. What about contagious diseases, and all the infrastructure required to manage them?
"You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man." --Frederick Douglas
fire department -> fire inspector
Does your support for a fire department imply support for a fire code and fire inspector?
"You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man." --Frederick Douglas
preventing abuse of government?
Here we have a set of policies for an ideal government. One of the common oversights of these sorts of schemes is that they treat the relationship between government and soceity as a one-way street: government sets rules and society lives by those rules.
The problem with this sort of reasoning is that it can generate "ideal governments" that are completely unsustainable simply because those governments would not produce a society that would support the government. The most basic concern is that this society may allow the government to fall into the hands of a group that does not desire the general welfare, and instead simply uses the government to advance its own welfare.
Any thoughts on this issue?
"You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man." --Frederick Douglas
Ender's Utopia
:-)
Did I miss the part about Courts? How do you deal with injustice or perceived injustice?
Do we still get to have a trail by a jury of our peers and the right to representation?
A country of laws and not men, was the basis of liberty, in the constitution, yes?
What happens if I drink from the privately run water system and I get sick? Do I take personal responsibility for my sickness, even though my good faith was misplaced, that the water I was drinking was clean? Does the private water company bear any responsibility for causing me harm? Does selling me a bad product represent coercion by a private company?
It is the economy, stupid.
The Free Market will solve it all!
If you get sick from the foul water, clearly it was either fraud (because they said they had treated it when they didn't) in which case they go to jail, or it was poor quality, in which case, people will switch water companies and the bad supplier will go out of business.
You won't need judges because the law is so simply you can go right to a jury, which will be made up of professional arbiters who bid out their services but are paid by the loser! (and if the loser is indigent, well, they'll have to work it off while they are in prison)
Then, a magical pony will fly down from the heavens and tell you that it loves you and will take you away to magic pony-land!
Why are you being so flippant :-o
about something so serious :-l Ender is obviously serious as are many others who believe this way.
Seriously...... we have police because...... people do bad things sometimes. I think that is a piece that goes missing in the free market solution. Who policies the free markets. if money is the great equalizer then so called crimes of the rich becomes less offensive and crimes by the poor are more offensive, yes? (The educated and rich can use drugs in a civilized fashion. The poor just can't handle themselves with any manners at all.)
That the great arbiter of justice would be free market enterprise insists that people always do good things, which is just not the case.
The willingness to forgive bad market practices, as correctable by the markets, should carry over to individuals, then. The weight of forgiveness is brought to bear because the CEO who made bad decisions is 'worth' more than the individuals who were harmed in terms of dollars and cents.
The more money you have the more value you are to your country. Those with less automatically have less freedom from coercion, because they obviously can not 'contribute' as much.
I beat up my neighbor but it is forgiveable because I have more money than he does.....?
I just don't see how this system is workable, which is why I advocate for free market cops, transparency to ensure fair competition, oversight of some kind and a mixed economy that includes safety nets.
The piece de resistance in our great country has been the right to a fair trail by a jury of your peers.
It is the economy, stupid.
'Twasn't flippant, but Satire
The system isn't just unworkable, but ridiculously so.
Do we have fair trials in this country? The wealthy still get much better protection than the poor in that area. You may have a right to a 'fair' trial, but not as fair as what others manage to buy.
Twsan't?
What isn't flip however is the people that truly believe that unregulated free market capitalism is THE magic pony that they can ride off into the sunset on. They just don't realize how many saddle sores they are in for, or that those saddle sores will get infected with a green puss, that is NOT the color of money.
It is the economy, stupid.
Ooo! Ooo! Ooo!
I want to go to Magic Pony Land!!!!!
Pick me! Pick me!
qui tacet consentire
You win!
Funny as a little girl, I always used to wish so hard that on Christmas day I would wake up and their would be a pony in the garage. I never did get my wish, although I fed a horse once.
It is the economy, stupid.
I don't pick who goes to Magic Pony Land
Take it up with the Free Market. It determines who gets the magic pony ride. (And it always chooses wisely, else the Magic Pony Provider would be beat out by the competition that was more efficient with its Magic Pony Resources)
access to the courts
This also brings up the issue of whether the court system would be functional in this society. Would regular people have an understanding of the system, and would they be able to afford lawyers?
"You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man." --Frederick Douglas
This point
is the whole basis for a civilized society. That we as a country are enlightened enough to offer a system of fair justice to the least among us. Though it is not perfect, it is a darn fine reason to be proud to live in this country.
IN the days before our Constitution, someone could point their fingers, and haul you away to the dungeon and there you stayed.
I don't think folks have a full appreciation for the absolute brilliance of our forefathers, who wrote the Constitution, and declared their indepence from the stuffy aristocrats from England.
Of course without the TeeVee they had more time to think on their hands. :+)
It is the economy, stupid.
Do you not see the contradiction?
First you say this:
And your very first principle is this:
ROFLMAO
qui tacet consentire
I think what he's saying
is that liberty is about trying to minimize coercion.
In other words by requiring insurance you reduce certain problems and hence all the things that go along with those problems which otherwise would lead to more coercion in an attempt to fix said problems.
It makes sense to me, especially because I know I've made similar arguments.
The only way to have a society without coercion is anarchy. And even then you are only getting rid of the coercion of the society itself (which can be a very good thing to do away with), coercion between individuals will never end.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
In other words
In order to eliminate Big Coercion you have to have Little Coercion.
Got it.
qui tacet consentire
Kind of like having kids
They coerce you into stuff you might not otherwise be willing to do. >kidding<
Or being married. My husband coerced me into...... oh well, nevermind.
The fine line between coercion and compromise......
It is the economy, stupid.
Is a duel
a coercion or a compromise?
Sic semper tyrannis
hmmm......
A power struggle for the sake of vanity and pride.
Good question!
It is the economy, stupid.
Come on, quaoar,
Are you saying that the definition of liberty as the state of minimizing coercion is silly?
Or that there might be circumstances where a small amount of coercion could conceivably prevent greater coercion later?
I most likely differ from Ender on the specifics but the underlying concept doesn't strike me as at all strange.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
I am saying
that it is silly to define liberty as "freedom from coercion" -- not minimizing coercion, but "freedom from" -- and then immediately suggest of program of government-imposed mandates far greater than what we have today.
qui tacet consentire
I don;t know, makes sense to me...
Assuming you view "liberty" as a continuum and not a binary state, then I can easily see saying that ultimate liberty would be the complete absence of coercion. Meanwhile whatever word you use to represent anti-liberty would be a state of ubiquitous coercion.
Of course neither of those states would ever be really reached and so the continuum between them would represent more of less coercion, inversely correlating to more or less liberty.
Ha!
I smell a Phil101 paper in the works. :)
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
I think some of the commenters are being needlessly harsh
In the first place clearly this was a simple statement of ideals. To argue that it doesn't cover every eventuality is sort of missing the point. Rather than saying the lack of a discussion of courts is a strike against it is more reasonable to say "well, how do you imagine the courts working in this system of yours."
I guess it's the difference between skepticism and cynicism.
Take a look at my post that was along similar lines (linked to above) and see if you'd be as harsh with regards to it. If not then it's the poster's bar color that's the problem for you, not the content of the post.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Private infrastructure + discrimination is OK
Just a really, really bad combination.
Sorry, this is a "white's only" freeway (though others can ride in the special buses that the street owner happens to own so they can get to where we want to let them. How many rural towns would have enough demand to support the competitive "Integrated Freeway" that someone decides to build?
2 Driveways to every house? 2 sets of water pipes and power lines?
And this is just one of the many ridiculous situations that could easily arise throughout this imaginary country.
Your diary, which I just read, describes a massively different society. The commonality, a base guaranteed income, is actually relatively minor.
It's not fair
that true.
But in the realm of personal responsibility...... he did post and run.
It is the economy, stupid.
And let's not forget, the market as spoken!
If people don't like his diary, heck, even if it WERE because of discrimination against Red Bars, who are we to question the market?
MissL
You know he did post it on a friday. I may not be a drive by posting so much as a post right before the weekend.
I mean it's not like ender is exactly shy around here.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Present
Yes I realize that.
Just making a point about the 'lack of personal responsibility' of his being not present to fend of all these harsh points against his utopia being made here at SC the grand marketplace of ideas.
Post and run was said tongue in cheek. If you get my drift.
It is the economy, stupid.
courts are not an "eventuallity"
Courts are a fundamental part of any legal system, not some side issue that might pop up given the proper circumstances. It is one of the core parts of the system, such that all policies need to be built around that core. It should not be an after-thought--it was a major over-sight on Ender's part that he completely ignored how the political/legal system would work and whether his proposed social/economic policies are compatible with a functional political/legal system.
This issue is particularly relevant because Ender proposed to do away with public education, which is often seen as one of the foundations of a functional democratic political/legal system. If half the population can't read, how will they decide who to vote for? How will they defend themselves from encroachments by others?
This is a core issue, and I'd like to know why he didn't think that it was worth commenting on.
"You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man." --Frederick Douglas
Courts are certainly important
I'm not denying that at all. What I am saying is that it is perfectly valid to propose a hypothetical system without being forced to speak to every aspect- or even every important aspect.
A building doesn't have to start with a complete blue print. It can start with a general idea or sketch. Of course, if you intend to actually build you will need a blue print eventually.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
renovating a building
Using that analogy, the problem is that Ender has proposed a radical renovation on a building, and it seems that he has only considered what it would be like to live in the renovated building but has not considered how his modifications would affect the structural integrity of the building. In fact, some of what he writes ("perfect personal responsibility", "unchangeable through legislature") suggests that he is oblivious to existence of any sort of social structure-- as if we were not fundamentally social creatures.
"You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man." --Frederick Douglas
*shrug*
Seems to me more like he said "here's my idea for a dream house..." and then people really strongly wanted to know how all the plumbing was going to work :)
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
I 'm not sure a flat tax on all income is the best way to fund
your society. It might very well be, I'm just not sure because I don't have a good handle on how that would motivate behavior as far as working. I suppose the obvious alternatives are a flat tax after a certain non-taxed minimum income, a progressive tax, a 100% tax on income up to a certain level (to cover yourself) and then a small tax on additional income, or a completely different kind of tax (e.g., sales).
Seems to me that providing basic necessities changes the impact of these tax schemes from what they would be in the US today -- for example, the flat tax is more appealing because it isn't eating into the money that poor people need to spend on mandatory expenses like food and shelter.
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
You wouldn't like living in the society you describe
There are many things that are done by government that you'd have a hard time privatizing, but nevertheless you'd miss if they didn't do it. I put road maintenance in that category, but I suppose that there might be a clever way of privatizing that, so I'll give a smaller-scale example-- around these parts, and in many areas of the country, they spray to keep the mosquito population down in the spring. Most people in the city would probably admit that this service benefits them if they thought about it. A few people probably would say that they don't mind mosquitoes and would rather not be taxed to pay for the service.
Government at its best is about providing services for the collective good, not about perect freedom from ever paying tax on service which you do not need or use. Public schools are a great example. It is for the greater good to have a strong public school system from which children can benefit regardless of their ability to pay. America rose to be an economic superpower with a workforce largely educated in a strong public school system. So we know that public education can work well. I think you're looking at a car with a mechanical problem, and rejecting the concept of the automobile, when instead the car just needs to be fixed. The question is, what is the fix? I personally think that education should be removed from the realm of the Federal government and returned to state and local government; but I think that government should still provide public schools.
skymutt: wise and powerful... enlightened...
lol sorry guys
I posted this in the airport as I was flying away to FL for the weekend... I didn't realize there would be this discussion, and kinda forgot about it! My fault. I am still away.
Tlaloc and I have some similar views on the topic. This is really just a statement of principles and fairly generic. I didn't intend to cover everything as I wrote it fairly quickly but it is one of my favorite topics :)
As for the Fire Department, I think protection from Fire is one of those minimum base services that should be available to all. It could be mostly private as well, subsidized for those who don't work.
The Justice system (courts) would of course be in the government's hands. I did not address the structure and nature of the government, but it would be a similar Republic with a system of checks and balances. Except for I would make it a much stricter Republic with inalienable rights impervious to change and any democratic challenge.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
You're in FLA?
I'm down here too. I'm on vacation around Daytona. Hence, I haven't been too available for posting either.
Anyway, interesting topic. Obviously very "generic" as you say and in definite need of elaboration.
I agree with you and Tlaloc (how 'bout that!) that there's a good general premise to build on here in a fruitful discussion.
I hope you overlook a lot of the self-servingly facetious and obtuse comments and expand a bit on your ideas.
Personally, I have some disagreements. I'll try to address them after the weekend.
Must resist temptation to
throws hands in air.
I hope you overlook a lot of the self-servingly facetious and obtuse comments and expand a bit on your ideas. lol lol lol
Speaking of self-serving.... nice drive by hit. Whose self does that serve?
It is the economy, stupid.
That's a very strong start for discussing what a govt.
should entail. Gaining the consensus needed in order to enact it would of course cut the core out from within it though. It would become the bastardized form of citizen representative government similar to what we have now. But it is a good start.
Hey, did you see that Early Copy of Magna Carta will go on Sale in NYC?
Here's an excerpt:
"The document was the Magna Carta, a declaration of human rights that would set some of the guiding principles for democracy as it is known today... Its key ideas were included in other variations over the next few decades, most notably the right of Habeas Corpus, which protects citizens against unlawful imprisonment. More than 800 years later, about 17 copies survive, and one of those, signed by King Edward I in 1297, will go up for sale Dec. 18 at Sotheby's."
I've heard that a cabal led by Dick Cheney and David Addington plan to buy up this document so that they can destroy it, thus allowing them to claim that this bizarre concept of "habeas corpus" never existed. Ever.
This calls for a Rush tune
Hold your fire-
Keep it burning bright
Hold the flame 'til the dream ignites-
A spirit with a vision is a dream with a mission
I hear their passionate music
Read the words that touch my heart
I gaze at their feverish pictures
The secrets that set them apart
When I feel the powerful visions
Their fire has made alive
I wish I had that instinct-
I wish I had that drive
Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire
Focused high on soaring ambitions
Consumed in a single desire
In the grip of a nameless possession-
A slave to the drive of obsession-
A spirit with a vision
Is a dream with a mission...
I watch their images flicker
Bringing light to a lifeless screen
I walk through their beautiful buildings
And I wish I had their dreams
But dreams don't need to have motion
To keep their spark alive
Obsession has to have action-
Pride turns on the drive
It's cold comfort
To the ones without it
To know how they struggled-
How they suffered about it
If their lives were exotic and strange
They would likely have gladly exchanged them
For something a little more plain
Maybe something a little more sane
We each pay a fabulous price
For our visions of paradise
But a spirit with a vision
Is a dream with a mission...
------------- Mission, Rush (Hold Your Fire)
:}
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran