Weirdo political ideas...

[Technocrat]

Part of what I do here at university (aside from sleep and procrastinate on essays) involves forumlating an ideal political system. While many others in my group have taken the rather boring route of some form of representative democracies, and some with the more innovative proto-fascist approaches, I've long been an advocate of a little something called "Technocratic Demarchy". Most of the response I got from the others (who seem in my group to be mostly chemists who are compelled to take at least one humanities module) was of the "nod and smile" variety, nobody wanting to point out anything to improve. Frankly, I think they were bewildered  by the detail I went into that the others had not.

Anyhow, I thought since is the non-adventure bit, I might as well posit it and see how popular it is. After all, few years time, maybe I'll stage a coup somewhere and get to experiment with it. Views from politicians and non-politicians alike welcome!




Political System Proposal - Technocratic Demarchy

Three Branches

1) The Technocracy - Rule by Experts

   - Executive/Bureaucratic fusion
   - Carries out day-to-day runnng of the country
   - operates like a business, with objective peak goals (education shoul have large number of literate children, hospitals should maximise quality of care)
   - experts administrating these fields; experienced hospital directors hired by technocracy to run health service, schoolteachers to run education, etc
   - certain sectors (e.g. public transport, ministry of housing) run as businesses to minimise requirement of tax drain
   - Technocracy does not make laws, rather enacts laws passed by Demarchy, and otherwise ensures optimal functioning of apparatus of state.
   - Has power to send proposed laws back to the Demarchy for modification, e.g. if they're unworkable incurrent form (maximum 3 returns)
   - Appoints 50% of the Constitutional Council


2) The Demarchy - Rule by the People

   - Legislative body
   - No direct power, but proposes laws which Technocracy would enact.
   - Not directly elected; 2,500 randomly chosen every year from all citizens of nation, to prevent buildup of interests and entrenched political movements, provide more representative sample
   - To avoid choosing politically apathetic, "citizenship" is an opt-in affair. You have to agree to it specifically (oath etc) in order to be eligible to be chosen for the Demarchy
   - Debating chamber, also has power to dissolve the senior committees of Technocracy in case of dangerously entrenched opinion
   - cannot be a member of both Technocracy and Demarchy
   - Mandatory minimum attendance of Demarchic sessions
   - Has power to modify constitution with 66% agreement within the Demarchy
   - Appoints 50% of the constitutional Council


3) The Constitutional Council - Protecting the People from themselves

   - Ensures that actions carried out by the Technocracy, and laws enacted by the Demarchy are within the Constitution
   - Half of the Councillors chosen by each "house".
   - Power to strike down laws deemed unconstitutional with Majority of Council's vote, and suspend activities of the Technocracy likewise.




Other features of the system:


Citizens -

   - Opt-in process, have to consciously choose to be "full" citizen, to avoid apathetics being forced into politics
   - Perhaps some form of test to determine suitability for citizenship, such as national service, or completion of citizenship examination
   - If not selected for the Demarchy, they can still vote on issues, once each, at their local government office. The results of these votes is provided to the Demarchy to enable them to make better informed decisions based on the will of the populace


Constitution -

   - Codified document enshrining rights of all people of the nation
   - Basic rights, e.g. freedom of speech, association, thought, religion, etc
   - Newer rights - freedom of information; citizens privy to information on *all* activities of government
             - freedom of media; not just freedom of the press, but a guarantee of net neutrality, and the provision of the national internet as an international haven.
             - right to the bare minimum; the government will provide, at minimum, a place to live, an education, security, health services, sanitation, and the most Godawful (but still technically sufficient) food necessary for keeping citizens alive. Quality of these bare-minimum services to be kept low, to encourage upward development.


National Security Forces -

   - akin to an army, but not with intention of projected force
   - while trained in combat, this will be defensive in intent, or in order to maintain social stability
   - main purpose as emergency response services, to provide firefighting/disaster response support both within the nation, and to others requesting assistance.
   - serves as everything from auxiliary firefighting to auxiliary teaching if needed.
   - combat arm will be as mechanised as possible (drones, missiles and automated sentry guns)
   - complsory national service; since not martial in nature, conscientious objection is not applicable. Position within ambulance corps/firefighters instead.
   - can skip national service if one succeeds in higher education (at least Bachelors degree).

[Nacho]

I have the idea of making a game of a commputist system. It' s like communist, but effective because the decissions are taken by a computer, not the flawable men.

Of course, live in that society is boring and sooner or later there will be a revolution! 

EDIT: Damn Babar, I was quite sure my idea was quite original

well... Remembering some Asimov' s stories (I remember a short one when the vote of ONE mas was the one deciding the president of the USA, because a computer decided he was the most representative) it' s not a big surprise.

[SSH]

How would you have a debate of 2500 people?

Would the Demarchy members have their regular jobs held open for them for a year?

[Babar]

Hahah...when I read 'technocracy', I also thought of a 'computist' system... I think I actually read something like that in a Isaac Asimov novel once: a computer system that was programmed by dozens of different programmers that ran the country. The end result was interesting, but I wouldn't want to spoil the story.

[InCreator]

There's no end to amount of state policing your idea would need.

To have it flawlessly working, it would require hordes of officials/policing agencies checking backgrounds of wannabe-leader school directors, public service tax rates (so monopolist businessmen would not rip off nation). And of course all this nazi system about citizenship and all this bureaucracy/hair tearing discussions enacting laws would need...
We had such a system. Not same, but close. Communist socialism. It worked on fear... of dark torture cells in local KGB house and a neighbor, who would give you up to nearest party member if you had some criticism talk about government while sipping beer together.

Defensive military? Defensive armies get bombed usually, at least, in modern world... I can imagine building tall drones sitting in a city while artillery reduces it to dust. Sorry, our programmers didn't include routines for offense...

Yeah, I live in democratic republic. Our parliament IS your demarchy. All they do is pass laws to goverment. A soap factory owner proposes low import taxes on soap, a russian spy suggests lower budget on defense, etc etc.

It's a damn corrupted mess where "hand washes a hand". So soap tax laws actually go through, especially when deciding minister gets his share of soap profit as "an anonymous support to his party campaign" or simply something to overseas bank account for retirement days. "No direct power" doesn't mean "no remote power". I don't see how your system could escape corruption here.

3) The Constitutional Council

Is your everday CIA, NSA, KGB, FSB... but without less power? One bad sheep here and whole system becomes corrupt.

While system might be nice on paper, people are not...
It's progressive though. Somewhat utopic.

....
Well, my own view is that people are generally stupid, corrupt and easily influenced.
This needs a powerful leader with as little of sub-leaders and bureaucracy as possible.
Absolute monarchy seemed to be most efficient. Not sure how it would work in modern world, though.

[SSH]

The Capitalism/Democracy combo works less badly than every other form of government because it relies on the selfishness of people. Most other systems rely on the selfLESSness of some number of people, which never works.

[Nacho]

I don't  think so. "The other systems" do not work because "there are not enough selflessnness people".

The other systems do not work because communism is an absurd theory.

It was not true that the doctrine was beautiful and its execution failed. The doctrine was based on a serious error in an intellectual and moral breakdown that will inevitably lead to disaster and terror.

Communist governments, without exception, built some very poor and brutal societies which invariably desperate people trying to flee. All experiments communists failed, regardless of the substrate on which they were trying to build. The system failed the Germans, Slavs, Latin Americans (Cuba and Nicaragua), Asians, black Africans. It' s not about people.

It does not work basically because saying "everybody is equal" is stupid.

[Dudeman Thingface]

I can only see two major problems:

1) Define what you mean by experts, I'm afraid you may be making the grave mistake of mixing up intelligence with wisdom (i.e., just because someone may have an infinite knowledge of politics, doesn't mean they know anything about running a country).

2) Also, I can see someone getting into the constitutional council and causing all kinds of havoc (it has too much power in one place). I would suggest dividing it into the 3 groups. One carries out technocracy laws, one checks that the laws are within constitutional reasoning and another group (consisting of the two together) can opt to vote to overthrow (or, as you said, strike down) unconstitutional rules, however, should the vote succeed. They must also get a 60% agreement vote from the demarchy, and if that fails, they can try to get a 70% vote from the technocracy itself.
This more red tape is simply to eliminate someone getting into the council and making a sudden Hitler-esque (that is, extremely fast) rise to power and to remove the ability for a conspiracy group to secretly take over the constitutional council and force their views. (Almost entirely due to the third point).


Other than that, I still partly get the feeling it is somewhat utopic (you don't really have any contingency plans should something go wrong and you assume it will work out, which won't occur unless you have something akin to Deus Ex's Helios (AI construct)).

[Technocrat]

Well, plenty of things to answer. I shall attempt to clairfy and justify my viewpoint!

How would you have a debate of 2500 people?

Would the Demarchy members have their regular jobs held open for them for a year?

My original concept was to have the demarchy consisting of the entire nation (opt in) capable of voting via local centres, or the internet. I lowered it to 2500 as a compromise between it being too large to be unmanageable, and small enough to at least engage in a large enough cross-section for debate to be representative. Ideally, like Dudeman Thingface says, something like Helios would be brilliant for total consent of the people on any law-based matter.

I can only see two major problems:

1) Define what you mean by experts, I'm afraid you may be making the grave mistake of mixing up intelligence with wisdom (i.e., just because someone may have an infinite knowledge of politics, doesn't mean they know anything about running a country).

2) Also, I can see someone getting into the constitutional council and causing all kinds of havoc (it has too much power in one place). I would suggest dividing it into the 3 groups. One carries out technocracy laws, one checks that the laws are within constitutional reasoning and another group (consisting of the two together) can opt to vote to overthrow (or, as you said, strike down) unconstitutional rules, however, should the vote succeed. They must also get a 60% agreement vote from the demarchy, and if that fails, they can try to get a 70% vote from the technocracy itself.
This more red tape is simply to eliminate someone getting into the council and making a sudden Hitler-esque (that is, extremely fast) rise to power and to remove the ability for a conspiracy group to secretly take over the constitutional council and force their views. (Almost entirely due to the third point).


Other than that, I still partly get the feeling it is somewhat utopic (you don't really have any contingency plans should something go wrong and you assume it will work out, which won't occur unless you have something akin to Deus Ex's Helios (AI construct)).

1) For experts, I'm thinking of a similar model to civil services (I'm probably just a teensy weensy bit biased in favour of their competence, since quite literally everyone in my family works for them!), in that experts are appointed based on their credible track record of success. I don't intend to place academics with little practical skill in charge (such a thing was dreadful for the USSR), but those who have proven their capability in other areas. For example, successful hospital administrators running the department of health, and for certain state-run operations (television, utlities, etc) recruit from the private sector, and run modelled as a business with profit-driven tactics determining their success.

2) That sounds like an interesting division of the Constitutional Council - the function I had intended it for was something akin to the Supreme Court of the USA. Their power to influence/make policy is limited to knowing individuals within the demarchy, and they themselves serve as a national safeguard against abuse of power by either the technocracy or the demarchy.

There's no end to amount of state policing your idea would need.

To have it flawlessly working, it would require hordes of officials/policing agencies checking backgrounds of wannabe-leader school directors, public service tax rates (so monopolist businessmen would not rip off nation). And of course all this nazi system about citizenship and all this bureaucracy/hair tearing discussions enacting laws would need...
We had such a system. Not same, but close. Communist socialism. It worked on fear... of dark torture cells in local KGB house and a neighbor, who would give you up to nearest party member if you had some criticism talk about government while sipping beer together.

Defensive military? Defensive armies get bombed usually, at least, in modern world... I can imagine building tall drones sitting in a city while artillery reduces it to dust. Sorry, our programmers didn't include routines for offense...

Yeah, I live in democratic republic. Our parliament IS your demarchy. All they do is pass laws to goverment. A soap factory owner proposes low import taxes on soap, a russian spy suggests lower budget on defense, etc etc.

It's a damn corrupted mess where "hand washes a hand". So soap tax laws actually go through, especially when deciding minister gets his share of soap profit as "an anonymous support to his party campaign" or simply something to overseas bank account for retirement days. "No direct power" doesn't mean "no remote power". I don't see how your system could escape corruption here.

3) The Constitutional Council

Is your everday CIA, NSA, KGB, FSB... but without less power? One bad sheep here and whole system becomes corrupt.

While system might be nice on paper, people are not...
It's progressive though. Somewhat utopic.

....
Well, my own view is that people are generally stupid, corrupt and easily influenced.
This needs a powerful leader with as little of sub-leaders and bureaucracy as possible.
Absolute monarchy seemed to be most efficient. Not sure how it would work in modern world, though.

I'm not sure I understand why a large volume of police would be required - understandably, and necessarily, there would have to be stringent background checks on those becoming a part of the technocracy, and the demarchy also acts as a means by which members of the technocracy could lose their jobs if the demarchy (representing the will of the people) saw them as not doing their jobs properly, or abusing their positions.

The system is also intended to limit the soap tax problem. Rather than having a "pet" representative in a legislature that certain industries may have acquired by funding their campaigns, by having members of the demarchy randomly selected, it limits the possibility or being quite so persuasive. The larger number of members is also aimed to dilute the effect - especially if, as hoped for in the long term, it can be rolled out to the entire nation.

As mentioned, the constitutional council is aimed at being more of a supreme court, and a means of limiting dangerous populist measures if they violate the constitution, or curbing the actions of the technocracy if needs be.

As for a defensive armed force, the general idea behind it is to make it less of an "army", more a "fire brigade on steroids", performing the emergency response and peacekeeping function that Territorials/National Guard would perform.

I think we both have a concern about the greedy and selfish nature of career politicians and those who make use of them, but whereas your ideal solution is to apply sufficient top-down pressure to limit it, mine is aimed at a "bottom-up" approach, trapping them in the proverbial red tape net before harm can be done.

I have the idea of making a game of a commputist system. It' s like communist, but effective because the decissions are taken by a computer, not the flawable men.

Of course, live in that society is boring and sooner or later there will be a revolution! 

You never know, the Illuminati might be controlling our governments with an evil supercomputer already...*glances suspiciously*


Phew, hopefully that's allayed some concerns.

[Dudeman Thingface]

OK, I have a few more concerns.

In terms of your response, as you said:

trapping them in the proverbial red tape net before harm can be done

I simply suggest giving the Constitutional Council more red tape, because I keep reading it and imagining them just snapping their fingers and making things happen (which can be as bad as it is good).

Also, in terms of the NSF (heh, Deus Ex) I would highly suggest segmenting their multiple disciplines, for several reasons:

1) If I was a terrorist, all I need do is cause a few fires, kill a whole bunch of people while simultaneously engaging in war against you. I guarantee that by having ONE force that does a majority of the work, you will be overwhelmed.
Although I like the idea of everyone in the NSF being trained to take on all of these roles, I highly suggest still having lower groups that are, even if only mostly, dedicated to one thing (such as emergency services, local police force etc.), and, because everyone is so multi-disciplined, move people around in times of hardship (such in the case of a huge fire threatening to devour your nation, you would transfer a whole bunch of people, because everyone in the NSF would be trained to do so, to the fire fighting to help out). Of course, this would be needed to be kept in check.

2) Your army being almost totally robotic is like playing starcraft and using only zerglings. You have a great advantage, but you also have a great weakness. Such as the zerglings being cheap and quick to manufacture, they suffer from very low hitpoints against vehicles and stronger troops. Just like your robots being strong and lacking any morale weaknesses, they are all affected by EMP.
Whilst I can understand EMP shielding for the CPU core, you will not be able to fully EMP shield the entire bot chassis from EMP damage (due to the diverse effects of EMP - the magnetic field, electric field, the photo electric effect occurring due to the previous two effects causing a release of photons), as such, a simple atomic bomb could (apart from destroying your troops) could knockout more than it could kill (subject to location, dispersion of troops etc.).
When I mention knockout, I'm not referring to the CPU core, I refer to the rest of the cables and power transmission. Lines could be shorted, switches could be tripped.
Also, a powerful (and close enough) alternating magnetic field could magnetize your robotic troops and cause them to crush their very insides (as it caves in as the now magnetised pieces of metal come together) or fly apart (as the magnetised metal repels). I could see this occurring as a plane flies over, drops a mechanical device which creates a large alternating current. Or even launched from artillery.

As such, you would need a strong military human force to supplement these disadvantages, even if they were mostly mechanics servicing the bots whilst being shot at. Furthermore, you would also need much human attention on the AI and their communication lines. Which  would have to wi-fi (as their long cables attaching them to home base could be severed), and as such, unlike a human force (which doesn't NEED to constantly be talking to each other via radio transmission) the robots would HAVE to. So the enemy could fire an insane amount of radio waves at the bots which would disrupt information.
- and I haven't even got into hacking the transmissions.

I think I should stop now, but you should consider this in terms of your National Security Forces.

[Makeout Patrol]

Your "technocracy" sounds pretty much identical to modern day government bureaucracy to me. The big problem to me, however, is that there doesn't appear to be any sort of accountability for the "demarchy" - what's to stop them from giving themselves gigantic pay raises and shuffling off responsibilities onto the technocracy?

[RickJ]

  Increator makes a truly profound statement when he says ...

While system might be nice on paper, people are not.

Communism, socialism, and other failed isms, are fatally flawed because for them to succeed it is necessary for the human participants to act against their nature.   People will always act in their own best interest; always been true, always will be true.   Put them in a situation that requires them to do otherwise and they will find ways to game the system.   Almost all loser isms have one trait in common in that they require everyone's participations claiming that if everyone doesn't participate then they ism won't work.   This is an admission that if people had a choice they would by and large choose not to participate and that the ism will under-perform.   If only a small number of people opted out and over time they were not doing as well as the people who opted in then it wouldn't be necessary to require everyone's participation, now would it?  Everybody would want to opt in because they would be demonstrably better off.

All governments are flawed.  Power begets power, institutions and bureaucracies have a life of their own and will do anything and everything to survive and grow.  That's why Thomas Jefferson said that "The government that governs least governs best" and suggested that a little revolution from time to time would be a good thing.   Name one, just one, political group that has disbanded when they achieved their initial goals.   It's never ever happened.   There are no doubt examples of groups that have atrophied and subsequently vanished but none that stood up and said "Hey, we've accomplished what we set out to do so we are disbanding our group and going back home to play with the kids and the dog."   

I do like the idea of  "opting in", term limits, and choosing politicians at random.  The problem with career politicians is that by necessity, they make too many promises and commitments, owe too many favors, and are continually tempted to trade favors for favors (sometimes illegally).   Term limits would help this situation because legislators would come in virgin and have to leave before they could be corrupted very much. 

I would make it so that whoever wanted to be in politics would be automatically disqualified from doing so.  Then I would select political candidates randomly from everyone that was left.  Then the general population could vote for the candidate of their choice.  Sort of like jury selection a la Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy.   

[InCreator]

...which exactly is why I would see powerful dictator/monarch as best option.

Both USA and Russia actually somewhat reaches that kind of system. While people/government/senate/whoever have their say and can blabber and protest till hell freezes over, ye olde' Bush / Putin simply gave bombers a green light. It might be not nice from a simple citizen viewpoint, but in terms of a power of a nation and country, everything's held together, mostly.

Huh, I lean towards nationalism, ain't I? Well, my country is being sold piece-by-piece to highest bidder, it comes from there.

Nacho, you have very black-and-white view on communist era. Are you sure you know what you're talking about? People under soviet rule were not as unhappy as you might think. The system was actually great in most parts. What made it fragile was
* lack of luxuries and free market - everyone wants to have coolest car and tv - having exactly same as neighbor isn't interesting and maked you look West.
* nationalism and immigration - russians everywhere, moscow as the general ruler, the word "socialist republic" actually meaning "russian province"
* the method Stalin tried to build communism: hardcore brainwashing, fear and isolation.

- Brainwashing meant heavy marxist learning in school, russian language in schools, too much Lenin-praying, a cult (read: The Party)
- Fear I described earlier. If you were unhappy with system and let people see it, you were in BIG trouble
- isolation meant no "capitalist" countries for you to visit, no foreign tv channels, japanese tv or american car

If communism was built onto something different and actually gave people a choice between capitalism and communism, while eliminating three previous methods of holding, it might have grown into something workable and I'm sure many people would actually CHOOSE it over capitalism. Because in the start, people DID choose it, during great October Revolution.

HUGE amount of Russians think of Soviet era as the best days even today. They loved it! It's rest of Europe who didn't like occupying at all.

But free choice is not how Marx and Engels imagined it.

Somebody should re-write socialism basics to fit into modern world and it might just work.

[Nacho]

Yes, I am sure.

[Montague]

I don't know, doesn't seem like there's a lot of personal accountability in this system. In the world of business you create a position for the one (or few) person (people) who are held accountable for the overall performance of your company. You give these people a reasonable amount of executive power and a big fat paycheck to make sure they have more invested in the company's well-being than anyone else. Of course, today those mechanics are being sabotaged by the 'financial parachute', but that's a flaw in the system, not the idea behind it.

Governments need the same mechanics of accountability, because any model should start with the premise: in time, the system will be corrupted. A corruption-proof system is as realistic as a hacker-proof computer network; your encryption keys might be incredibly powerful, but people who have the knowledge and resources will always find a back door. Technocratic systems (for instance, the European Union) are mostly a potent way to dissolve personal accountability, which isn't a good way to limit corruption. You end up with a lot of people who have a lot to gain by keeping back-doors open, and nobody who has everything to lose if people find out about them.

[Huw Dawson]

Well, Communism attempts to break the vicious cycle of Finite Needs but Infinite Wants, right? Now, if we mix that with basic agendas - people want the best situation possible for themselves - then you have your basic flaw with Communism. Almost nobody would give up their allusions to all those Wants they have for the sake of giving everybody an equal amount of Wants. True Communism will always require a change in the human condition.

That said, as a Liberal, I'm an eternal optimist about people. Any system of government can work well. It just needs the right circumstance and the right leader. Democracy is over 3000 years old as a concept, and is the most stable structure we have.

- Huw

EDIT: Then again, Comminism has never been truely tried. It's been forced (IE Bolshevikism) but it has always required a natural series of events (Menshevikism).

[RickJ]

Then again, Comminism has never been truely tried. It's been forced (IE Bolshevikism) but it has always required a natural series of events (Menshevikism).

The  "Communism has never been truly tried.." thing is a tiresome excuse for failure.  I've heard it many time but I've never heard anyone give a thoughtful explanation.  Communal human societies have been in exsistence as long as there have been people.  They all have a number of traits in common, the most notable of which is poverty. 

Just look around the world and where you find the most severe poverty you will also likely find a tradition of some kind of communal system, where the group or society owns property rather than individuals. 

... Communism attempts to break the vicious cycle of Finite Needs but Infinite Wants ...

I think you meant to say "Finite Means" instead of "Finite Needs".   Regardless, your statement would indicate that communism's basic premise is flawed.   What you describe as a vicious cycle is what drives progress and creates wealth.  It doesn't need to be broken and in fact is necessary for a society to prosper.   If it were human nature to be satisfied with just having one's basic needs met we would still be living in mud huts and eating berries.  I guess there are still examples where people still live in mud huts and have little more than berries to eat.  I'd bet they didn't get that way through a system or tradition of individual freedoms, individual property rights, and free market capitalism.

.. people want the best situation possible for themselves ...

What's wrong with this kind of thinking.  Isn't it good thing that people want to improve themselves and their living conditions?  Imagine what it would be like if this were not the case?  Instead of typing and reading shit on the internet we would probably all be  roaming around the woods half naked looking for berries.

Almost nobody would give up their allusions to all those Wants they have for the sake of giving everybody an equal amount of Wants ...

Except those people who would stand to gain power and/or those who get to sit on their asses all day for a living.  The reason it's been forced is that people won't voluntarily submit to it, especially the people who do all the hard and undesirable work
that's required to keep a society functioning.     

True Communism will always require a change in the human condition.

This is the best condemnation of communism as I have ever heard or could have thought of myself.  If communism is unable to serve the needs and wants of humanity or inspire it to progress and prosper then WTF good is it? 

[InCreator]

This is the best condemnation of communism as I have ever heard or could have thought of myself.  If communism is unable to serve the needs and wants of humanity or inspire it to progress and prosper then WTF good is it?

So, people pulled triple shifts at work during Five Year Plan out of will to NOT prosper or progress?
Every kid wanted to be a cosmonaut, every worker wanted to be the best in his factory/whatever, every factory competed with every other simply out of boredom?

Socialist competition to improve Union, the big idea was simply a joke? US launched smear'n'fear campaigns on daily basis just because USSR was NOT growing a bigger economic and military threat day-by-day at all and simply needed that last push into hell?

Space Race, Arms race, it was only one sided where Soviet Union (the PEOPLE of USSR) had really no wish or motivation to become the greatest?

"Oh yeah, let's get this Sputnik built so our leader would shut up already?"

....
you are crazy people. If anything, the ACTUAL wish to be even better, progress even more is what tore union apart. They really shouldn't have embargoed american cars and japanese TV's. Or foreign travel.

The communist worker, after reaching the limits of being best in his work, realized, that in western countries, he could profit much more from his skills and experience. And live much more luxurious life. This is when they started to look West.

[Andail]

Just look around the world and where you find the most severe poverty you will also likely find a tradition of some kind of communal system, where the group or society owns property rather than individuals. 

I challenge that statement, instead I think you'll find traces of capitalism there; some individuals taking as much property as they possibly can, ignoring the needs of others.

If your definition of communism is that people simply don't own anything, then yes, it can automatically be applied to all systems where poverty is present, but this is a very simplified definition.

Communism does not mean that a particular group of people owns everything, it means that everyone owns everything, only that they share it, and are not allowed to collect excessive amount of said property just because they can.

And if you think it's tiresome to hear the "you can't blame communism because it hasn't been tried"-argument, well, get used to it. Because it hasn't really been tried; what you've got so far has been dictators taking control of everything and enslaving people. Then they've called it communism, because, well, you have to call it something.

That's like blaming Christianity for the Spanish inquisition. It's narrow-minded and illogical. People always kill - and die - in the name of something.

I don't personally advocate communism, because I think the alleged benefits from it are exaggerated. I don't think rivalry and jelousy and revenge and competition will cease to exist just because people share their material property; such traits are fundamental and will be channelled in other ways. We are identified by our differences. It is by excluding people we form teams and groups.

I also support democracy - preferably social democracy - but I have a gripe with people who dismiss everything but the capitalistic way, as if that way isn't also smeared with blood from people who died in its name.

[DutchMarco]

This interesting post (yours that is, modesty prevents me from posting such judgment about my own)

One aspect which your technocracy doesn't take into account, is the human incapability to deal with power. Sure, in atechnical level we can deal with it (electric power, mechanic power, etc) but with political power our brains fall apart. That's the whole reason we need some form of demarchy,which poses all sorts of other problems. (like he populists claiming those ppulists who disagree with them are cheap populists).

I sense the danger of this thread becoming a political one. Take action, Pumaman!