The State and the Nations

Historical insights & thoughts about the world we live in - and the social conditioning exerted upon us by past and current propaganda.
Farcevalue
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Re: The State and the Nations

Unread post by Farcevalue »

kickstones wrote:
....This also maybe relevant to alchohol / violence and health related issues, because as discussed earlier, there is a high rate of alcohol related problems in Alaska and further analysis reveals....

Although heavy alcohol use in Alaska is not restricted to Alaska Natives, alcohol abuse and its consequences are disproportionately high
among this group.


Bernard Segal, Ph.D. suggests ...

Over the past 25 to 30 years, the development of the oil industry has spurred Alaska Natives ’ transition from a subsistence to a cash economy. The resulting alterations in family roles, community functions, and other aspects of culture may play a role in Alaska Natives’ use of alcohol

http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh22-4/276.pdf

Like you say.....

" The whole idea of what work is needs to change, from "employment" (business and profit based) to what is good for humanity as a whole."

However TPTB that controls the monetary economy ain't going to let the transformation to a subsistence economy happen in one step. There has to be stepping stones to achieve this aim, one such stone in my view is an introduction of a basic income system, implement that universally, rid yourself of the shackles of the state, one of the tools TPTB use to control us, then see where the next stone lies. If that makes sense.
The genocidal humanitarian crime that defines the conquering of the American continent is something that has never been addressed in a meaningful way (I've never seen a Red Lives Matter campaign) and may have much to do with the predilection of a former free community to destructively indulge in their escapist libation of choice.

As far as basic income goes, the astute restaurateur who created the sign below illustrates the issue well:

Image

Any "system" ( although that word may be anathema to anyone yearning to be free) to be considered should have as fundamental premises universality and reversibility, which is why any so called "rights" can only be negative. One can claim the right to remain unmolested and everyone can equally and simultaneously exercise that same right. If someone invokes the right to tax, that right cannot be reversed and observed universally. The same goes for any mandatory currency. If one group claims the right to have a monopoly on currency, that cannot be a universal right. On the other hand everyone can adopt the method of exchange they are most comfortable with and perhaps one may become more popular than others due to convenience or stability.

BTO provided an interesting explanation of the role of British currency in colonization upon a time:

The British colonizers would arrive on an island, continent or whatever and tell the locals, "You can maintain your way of life and not be killed and burned out of your huts if you just pay us "X" number of pounds in taxes."
"But we don't have any pounds."
"That's okay, just bring us your molasses, rubber, diamonds, ebony and the like, we will pay you in pounds for all that stuff, then you can pay taxes."

Easy-peasy.

Plus ca change...
aa5
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Re: The State and the Nations

Unread post by aa5 »

antipodean wrote:
What about a society (Nation) that doesn't have much of a need for Accountants & Lawyers etc. Academic minded people therefore gravitate towards the sciences, and you actually have a surplus of Doctors.
Then the wages of doctors would be driven down to nothing too(for doing routine medical work). There still would be individuals who developed unique or advanced talents and knowledge, that people would have to pay more to get the services of. And some doctors would create whole new opportunities, when forced. Such as we have seen with plastic surgeons and cosmetic surgery. And others in areas such as clinical trial design, pharmacological research, etc.
antipodean
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Re: The State and the Nations

Unread post by antipodean »

There still would be individuals who developed unique or advanced talents and knowledge, that people would have to pay more to get the services of. And some doctors would create whole new opportunities, when forced. Such as we have seen with plastic surgeons and cosmetic surgery. And others in areas such as clinical trial design, pharmacological research, etc.
The recipients of such surgery would be those living in a society where an advantage or an increase in self esteem can be gained by having access, to this type of cosmetic/ elective surgery.

Pharmacological research is generally tax payer/ charity funding for large Multi National Drug Corporations, funding their R&D.

What interested me in the link I posted is how Cuba has so many Doctors that, they become an export commodity.
Flabbergasted
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Re: The State and the Nations

Unread post by Flabbergasted »

antipodean wrote:What interested me in the link I posted is how Cuba has so many Doctors that, they become an export commodity.
I don´t want to be a kill-joy, but just to clarify:

The Cuban physicians (or rather, health professionals) exported to Brazil and Venezuela are so poorly educated (some are not physicians at all) that they are exempt from taking medical exams to validate their degree in the countries receiving them. I can assure you that not one would pass a Brazilian medical exam. Nor are they required to speak Portuguese decently, although they will be working in hinterland locations where doctor-patient communication is particularly challenging. If you search the web, you can find scans of prescriptions by Cuban doctors which illustrate the point (please note: I am describing a general scenario, not giving a thumbs-down to all "imported" professionals, some of whom may be committed and attentive enough).

On the other hand, a large part of their pay (offhand, perhaps around 80%) is dispatched to Cuba. The family gets a part and the government gets another. I don´t know which is the larger part, but I have my suspicions. The latter part is also shared with the Brazilian operators of the scheme, forming a closed loop. Many Brazilian physicians simply regard it as slave labor. A country having "physicians" as its main commodity of export sounds fantastic, almost utopian, but reality is somewhat less romantic.

Brazil has quite a large contingent of doctors and an impressive number of medical schools churning out physicians every year. The problem with providing primary care outside the big cities is not the pay (which is quite good), nor necessarily refusal to live in the rural zone (though that is a relevant point), but first and foremost the permanent lack of essential equipment and supplies in health care facilities, making it near-impossible to treat even the commonest conditions.

Local political interference and pilfering (in Brazil, mayors are absolute monarchs) is another mighty obstacle.
Gopi
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Re: The State and the Nations

Unread post by Gopi »

hoi.polloi wrote:... and for synthesizing my work with your interesting theory.
Thank you for your kind words, Simon and Hoi... though I might add that it is not mine; these ideas have been around for nearly a century, but not acknowledged or understood due to the smoke covering it. And more than a theory, I hope to show that it is a new way of thinking itself -- quite frankly since no one teaches nowadays to overcome the dialectic in every thought, it is a bit hard to communicate.
aa5 wrote:The state used to be a relatively small part of Western economies. Fluctuating between 5-10% of the economy until the 20th century... I believe a serious crisis hit the West early in the 20th century. The crisis was that the pace of science and technology became so rapid that it was making jobs obsolete faster than new jobs were being created.
Exactly, and this shows again how the functions have their effect. When the human community is small, then a slight overlap and confusion between the economic and the state functions (with chimeras like "economy of the country") do not do much harm. But yoke it up with the powerful trans-national economic power of the colonizers, and you can even predict that things are going to spiral out of control. Economic realities go beyond borders and are global by their very nature, and the State simply became a puppet of the economy because of that, resulting in a "global state".
hoi wrote:First, you're drawing up the whole question in my mind: what are "jobs" even for exactly?
Jobs are right at the intersection of "human rights" (to sustenance, to live) and "productive economy" (benefit the world), and it looks like there have been several struggles to come to terms with them. When the state essentially takes over the sustenance function, then we have the Welfare state, Universal Credit that Apache mentioned, or even the Basic Income. Even minimum wage is a partial arrangement since it does not guarantee a sustenance.

Perhaps it is being missed that the government may have a say in requiring a sustenance level to be maintained in the society, but it can have no role in bringing it about. For an analogy... say there is an anti-discrimination clause for a specific position, in a school or a business. The putting in of that clause is government or rights-activity. But the government cannot hire the person for the company's position, that is an overreach of functions. It can only state: "Whatever you do, do it without discriminating" and then let the company figure out the rest.

However, when it comes to jobs, one expects not only the law that safeguards basic sustenance, but also wants the sustenance itself to come from the state. That, IMHO, is where the blunder is. It is functionally incompatible. You cannot express 'x' axis by using 'y' axis.
aa5 wrote:I used to believe that in a society, wages were directly tied to productivity. Because when I looked at nations the wage levels as an average matched the productivity. What I didn't see is there is the usual supply & demand dynamic at work
A related question is: Whether a particular item should be produced? No one asks that question, because they're left with the dialectic of capitalism-communism... where one is entirely coerced by greed, or by the State. Capitalists believe in the invisible hand of supply and demand, as a dogma. The trouble is there is an enormous of amount of unnecessary production (arms industry for example) and the government cannot do anything there. It is only something that is NOT government or industry that can address this question. In all events, the third aspect of society that does not govern, but guides/educates/researches has been shrunk and ignored.

This also relates to the Alaskan drinking problem mentioned by kickstones... there is no system of education or cultural development for adults that can lead anywhere, and when the solution is only mediated between the government and the industry, the solution collapses at the individual level. If all we have to look forward to in terms of true research is full of government or industry sponsored-biases, what motivation is there to live and discover anything new in life?
antipodean wrote: What about a society (Nation) that doesn't have much of a need for Accountants & Lawyers etc. Academic minded people therefore gravitate towards the sciences, and you actually have a surplus of Doctors. When you think of Cuban exports,
Once again, the word Nation, the government entity (Cuba) and the economic function (exports) are all mixed up. It is quite a deeply ingrained habit!
Farcevalue wrote:If there was a mention of the reliance on violence by any nation or state in order to achieve its ends in the above posts, I may have missed it, but violence should always be at the forefront of any analysis of the state.
That has become the result today, due to the unholy marriage of industry and state, with the offspring as an out-of-control military. If a state has only enough resources to maintain a periodic police force, and not the military-industrial backing to launch a full-fledged army onto its citizens or others, the violence would not have to become such a big part of things.

I like the analogy of driving a car. The capacity of the car to be driven at a certain speed is determined by the scientific and engineering skill of its makers (cultural aspect). Whether one should actually drive at those speeds is decided by the lawmakers (rights-aspect) to post safe speed limits, with advise from the engineers. Whether one is actually able to drive a car depends on the availability of gas and money in the pocket to pay for it (economic aspect). The three aspects mutually intermingle (in the person driving it), but still remain functionally distinct.

If the economy gains the upper hand, then one is forced to follow the oil prices and car manufacturers' whims who might have strong-armed the system into eliminating public transport. If the government takes over, then the absurdity of policing extremes and physically impossible demands (you are not allowed to skip the light in the middle of the day when all roads are clear) follow. If the cultural aspect gains dominance, then one has all these wonderful ideas that can make travel cheap and safe for everyone, but there is no one to implement it.
antipodean
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Re: The State and the Nations

Unread post by antipodean »

Flabbergasted wrote:
antipodean wrote:What interested me in the link I posted is how Cuba has so many Doctors that, they become an export commodity.
I don´t want to be a kill-joy, but just to clarify:

The Cuban physicians (or rather, health professionals) exported to Brazil and Venezuela are so poorly educated (some are not physicians at all) that they are exempt from taking medical exams to validate their degree in the countries receiving them. I can assure you that not one would pass a Brazilian medical exam. Nor are they required to speak Portuguese decently, although they will be working in hinterland locations where doctor-patient communication is particularly challenging. If you search the web, you can find scans of prescriptions by Cuban doctors which illustrate the point (please note: I am describing a general scenario, not giving a thumbs-down to all "imported" professionals, some of whom may be committed and attentive enough).

On the other hand, a large part of their pay (offhand, perhaps around 80%) is dispatched to Cuba. The family gets a part and the government gets another. I don´t know which is the larger part, but I have my suspicions. The latter part is also shared with the Brazilian operators of the scheme, forming a closed loop. Many Brazilian physicians simply regard it as slave labor. A country having "physicians" as its main commodity of export sounds fantastic, almost utopian, but reality is somewhat less romantic.

Brazil has quite a large contingent of doctors and an impressive number of medical schools churning out physicians every year. The problem with providing primary care outside the big cities is not the pay (which is quite good), nor necessarily refusal to live in the rural zone (though that is a relevant point), but first and foremost the permanent lack of essential equipment and supplies in health care facilities, making it near-impossible to treat even the commonest conditions.

Local political interference and pilfering (in Brazil, mayors are absolute monarchs) is another mighty obstacle.
I wouldn't for one moment expect Cuban Doctors/ Physicians to be equal to the skill sets of those in western countries, considering that Cuba would be way behind in accessing various technological advances.

I never said that Doctors are Cuba's main export commodity.
Obviously it is in third world countries where they work. Brazil appears happy to accept them despite their inferior training.
How many of these Cuban Health Professionals do a runner and not return to Cuba ?

There are quite a few countries where health professionals, teachers etc are expected/ contracted to work (once they are qualified) for a couple of years in regions where it is difficult to attract skilled personnel.

But I think there are far more issues to research, such as life expectancy etc. When I watched the "Buena Vista Social Club", I was surprised at how many prominent musicians were well into their 80s & 90s.

Also some of the countries mentioned in this thread are difficult to make comparisons with.
A tropical island nation with an easier to ring fence economy, geographically large African Nation with large borders, a snow covered western region with large mineral resources.
A main component of economics is about maximising comparative (and in some cases absolute)advantage.

Not to mention mineral rich nations that have missed out because of colonialism.
aa5
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Re: The State and the Nations

Unread post by aa5 »

Apache wrote: The following horror story about their next plan in the UK should serve to illustrate just how expendable we all are:

In the UK the State introduced "tax credits" some years ago to top up the low wages of workers on minimum wage. This has been running for years to the point where workers have now become reliant on tax credits topping up their wages. These workers typically have jobs that are zero hours, low paid and insecure, that more often than not forces them to claim "benefits". There are also people who work part time (not out of choice) and who are also reliant on goverment benefits (they can claim a top up to their income and are classed as unemployed even though they are not unemployed) via main "unemployment" benefits and they can also claim housing benefit (rent that goes to rich landlords).

The unemployment benefits regime in the UK is brutal, has caused hundreds of deaths and is implemented in a savage fashion against both working and non-working people via financial sanctions that can last between 4 weeks and 3 years.

Next phase: the introduction of "Universal Credit". At this time it's being tested out on both single people who are unemployed and single people who work. Anyone who claims any sort of government "benefit", such as unemployment benefit, housing benefit and tax credits will all be shifted onto UC by 2017 (it's behind schedule).
I spent some years discussing economics on a British forum, so became familiar with the British social welfare system - although not as someone like you living in it lol.

I believe there has to be an actual Universal Credit. Enough to provide basic shelter, food, medicine, basic utilities. That does not get clawed back when someone goes and makes money(at least not until they make a very high income and pay higher taxes).

People in Europe are figuring this out, that there has to be a national dividend. But there is huge resistance from both left and right. For the left millions work in these social welfare programs, and their jobs would be largely obsolete with the dividend. Importantly the control the left has over people's lives through these byzantine bureaucracies would be greatly reduced, which obviously they do not like the idea of.

The right resists the idea because of the getting something for nothing aspect, and being conservatives, any substantial change is resisted, especially one to culture.

Getting something by putting in work yourself, makes perfect sense in a world where there is jobs and those jobs pay relative to the value you produce. But telling a person they must get a job, makes no sense if there is not enough jobs to go around, with machinery doing the majority of the work. Which machinery doing the work, effectively is 'getting something for nothing'.
aa5
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Re: The State and the Nations

Unread post by aa5 »

antipodean wrote:
What interested me in the link I posted is how Cuba has so many Doctors that, they become an export commodity.
That was interesting!
bostonterrierowner
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Re: The State and the Nations

Unread post by bostonterrierowner »

aa5 wrote:
Apache wrote:

Getting something by putting in work yourself, makes perfect sense in a world where there is jobs and those jobs pay relative to the value you produce. But telling a person they must get a job, makes no sense if there is not enough jobs to go around, with machinery doing the majority of the work. Which machinery doing the work, effectively is 'getting something for nothing'.
Dear aa5,

Unemployment is a strictly monetary/fiscal phenomenon, there is always shortage of labor, problem arises when one wants to be paid.
What if I told you I would be your unpaid assistant and do stuff you don't like doing so you can rest, run whatever?

There is always more stuff to do than available labor to do it regardless of technological advancement ( 200 years ago 90 per cent of people were employed in areas connected to food preparation ). 99 per cent of us on CF wouldn't have time to scratch our asses let alone engage in philosophical discussions :)

So as humanity progresses new inventions free up our potential to be used somewhere else than say farming and new professions and fields of science spring up to life.

What I wanted to say is that the sad and barbaric reality of mass joblessness around us has nothing to do with "...with machinery doing the majority of the work..." but the lack of spending/ aggregate demand.

And here we touch the subject of "the state" . Without it there is no chance of full employment, public spending must come to the rescue of abandoned ones left unemployed for whatever reason. Let alone the fact that money to pay taxes comes from government spending.

In "unmonetized" economies like for example precolonial Africa unemployment doesn't exist. People go around doing their stuff ( farming, hunting, sculpting).

Just like Farcevalue mentioned before it was this problem the British where faced with when they wanted to force African locals to work their asses off for them. They solved it by "monetizing" the economy, imposing taxes on it payable only in their unit of account.

Suddenly the unemployment showed up and the locals had to go to work for the British or get their huts burnt (literally).

Modern economies work exactly the same, the state imposes tax obligations extinguishable only with official currency thereby moving resources from private sector to itself.

Taxes drive money, nothing else.

p.s.

"...People in Europe are figuring this out, that there has to be a national dividend.."

I would personally see a job guarantee scheme, giving people a chance to work and do something with their lives ( private sector tends to employ people already working) than handouts further augmenting their state of dependence and idleness. Read up on "Jeffes" program in post crisis Argentina. BTW, I noticed you were musing about the collapse of Venezuela and the reason for it .

IMHO it's about foreign debt. Venezuelan corrupt politicians indebted their country in foreign currencies mainly USD depriving themselves of the control of national affairs. The only way to service foreign debt is trade surplus once it's gone you have a crisis ( Argentina, Greece, Spain and now to some degree Brasil and soon a biggie - China ). Inflation, internal devaluation, mass unemployment are the common symptoms .

I lived through a hyper inflationary depression as a kid :)
aa5
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Re: The State and the Nations

Unread post by aa5 »

bostonterrierowner wrote: Unemployment is a strictly monetary/fiscal phenomenon, there is always shortage of labor, problem arises when one wants to be paid.
What if I told you I would be your unpaid assistant and do stuff you don't like doing so you can rest, run whatever?

There is always more stuff to do than available labor to do it regardless of technological advancement ( 200 years ago 90 per cent of people were employed in areas connected to food preparation ). 99 per cent of us on CF wouldn't have time to scratch our asses let alone engage in philosophical discussions :)

So as humanity progresses new inventions free up our potential to be used somewhere else than say farming and new professions and fields of science spring up to life.

What I wanted to say is that the sad and barbaric reality of mass joblessness around us has nothing to do with "...with machinery doing the majority of the work..." but the lack of spending/ aggregate demand.
I agree with the lack of spending. In 2008/9 I was arguing online for massive, massive QE, which wasn't popular online at the time. But I think the results have proven themselves looking at the US vs. EU. With the US being much more aggressive in providing aggregate demand through fiscal and monetary stimulus. Now that the EU has belatedly fired up the printing presses, we see a growing recovery in Europe. In fairness to the EU, the US & UK have a much deeper experience and knowledge of running monetary systems, the EU authorities did eventually figure it out.

You are assuming that in free markets, the displacement of jobs through automation from machinery/computers will always be matched or exceeded by the same scientific & technological advances opening up new job opportunities. For example, the automation of the farm economy with farm combines, was enabled by the internal combustion engine and petro-chemical industries, and those same advances opened up vast new industries like in automobiles. People fled the dying farm communities, and came to work in the expanding industrial factories.

As the industrial factories were automated, today employing only about 10% of what they did in the 1950's, for the same level of production, people fled to work in office complexes managing the information of the much larger economy. But now data centers & server farms have taken out much of the need for people to manage and make decisions with the information. So where do the people flee to jobs next. In much of the West, the state is creating 'non-jobs' to fill the void. The tax revenues are still there and even growing, because the productive capacity is still there, it is just increasingly automated.
bostonterrierowner
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Re: The State and the Nations

Unread post by bostonterrierowner »

aa5,

QE is a deflationary mechanism because it removes interest income out of the economy hence de facto it works just like a tax. What the world needs is a fiscal expansion but unfortunately it's not the plan.

With the proper level of purchasing power in any given economy unemployment will always take care of itself.
Flabbergasted
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Re: The State and the Nations

Unread post by Flabbergasted »

The ancient Chinese concept of “divine mandate” was very different from the frivolous and rapacious version of aristocracy presented in history books and movies. Peace and prosperity were seen as a direct consequence of the virtues and rectitude of the emperor. This may seem off the beaten track of discussions on statesmanship (which tend to be crippled by historical materialism), but let us not lose sight of the lofty principles that informed many such traditional societies. Whatever we think of those societies, some of them were remarkably stable and longevous. In an often quoted passage from the “Great Learning”, Confucius describes the role of the sovereign in a nation predating the 6th century BC ‘time barrier’ thus:
In order to make the natural virtues shine in the hearts of all men, the ancient princes first of all applied themselves to governing their own principality well. In order to govern their principality well, they first restored proper order in their families. In order to establish proper order in their families, they worked hard at perfecting themselves first. In order to perfect themselves, they first regulated the movements of their hearts. To regulate the movements of their hearts, they first perfected their will. To perfect their will, they developed their knowledge to the highest degree. One develops knowledge by scrutinizing the nature of things. Once the nature of things is scrutinized, knowledge attains its highest degree. Knowledge having arrived at its highest degree, will becomes perfect. Will being perfect, the movements of the heart are controlled. The movements of the heart having been controlled, every man is free of faults. After having corrected oneself, one establishes order in the family. With order reigning in the family, the principality is well-governed. With the principality being well-governed, the empire soon enjoys peace.
(Ta-Hio, pt 1, tr. P. Couvreur)
Talk about noblesse oblige!
aa5
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Re: The State and the Nations

Unread post by aa5 »

Good post, my view is that there will be a ruling elite in a society. To me this is as natural as a corporation will have an executive leadership, even if the corporation is owned for the benefit of all equally.

In modern China the mandate from heaven to rule, is to deliver peace and prosperity to the country. Besides a few idealist people and power hungry people in China today, no one wants to overthrow the country's rulers. Because those rulers time in power have enabled peace, prosperity and opportunity unknown for centuries in China. Now as the Eastern provinces are becoming outright wealthy the citizens are putting less emphasis on sheer money and more emphasis on things like environment and additional liberty for their lives. Thus the rulers have to shift some of their machine to delivering progress on what the people want now.

In Europe and the USA, deep down we know there is a ruling elite. And that is not a problem, as long as that ruling elite delivers peace, prosperity and opportunity. And while people put impossible demands on politicians, when it comes to attacking the system itself people are pretty lenient. To use Europe as an example, the country experienced profound improvements in standard of living from the start of the post-war period to 1990. Then stagnation in many nations for quite a few years, then outright declining opportunity especially for the younger generation and eventually failing economics and cutbacks in some of the countries.

A young man with no family, no good job and little chance of ever making good money is ripe for violent movements that want to overthrow the existing order. While a young man with a good job, his own family and a real chance of improving upon his situation and status economically is never going to risk that to join a crazed movement.

Because I view it as natural that a cognitive elite will rule, and through their minds and positions will become wealthy, I also believe it comes with a test of worthiness. That test is to use their intelligence and wisdom to create an enviable society that is improving gradually year by year. Sometimes to maintain that progress it takes a severity of decisions, like crushing a dangerous ideology or carrying out a purge on non-performing members of the elite. I see that in some Western countries the elite is just too big, and frankly many of its members are not that elite in intellect, and very dangerously many seem to have bought into their own bs fairy tales.
hoi.polloi
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Re: The State and the Nations

Unread post by hoi.polloi »

Intellect is not the only quality of a good leader. It's also fairly important that they are not psychotic. Some would say lack of empathy is perhaps worse than ignorance, since positions can shield psychotics from pressure to perform well; maybe we can at least acknowledge the chance that they are equal problems. To use the odd voice being borrowed to talk of things abstractly and impersonally, the best leader "will" have a good head and a good heart.

I'm also not entirely sure how over-important it is to cultivate will above all other skills. Confucius makes fascinating reading, though, if flawed by the limits of the time he (it? they?) was in. The message seems to be that good people with the best constitutions for being mostly good most of the time will be leaders of the society, whatever their official position in it. Too bad that doesn't actually hold true yet. Prejudice, trends and the allure of celebrity (and conversely, the lack of celebrity and/or trend following) get in the way of seeing each other clearly. Not to mention plain old allure/curiosity/attraction! Maybe forever.

If we can build or at least maintain some culture that respects intellect and empathy as a winning combination, we might not have to be "led" by buffoons with even stupider and meaner servants they put in the high chairs. There is a very big population of people that doesn't believe State will ever function properly. And when those people vote, they tend to elect people that agree with them, in a sense, if you know what I mean.
aa5
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Re: The State and the Nations

Unread post by aa5 »

That is a good paradigm shift Hoi. Instead of arguing who would be best to rule over us, or which ideology is the best ideology, what if on most things free people organized however they chose to and figured things out for themselves, the organically created solutions would differ from place to place with different cultures, different factors and just different individuals in each place.
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