I'm usually a lurker here, rather than poster. Glad to see Doug participating from afar.
I think we give all to easy lip service to complex subjects like 'democracy'; or 'sustainability'. Democracy may be social ideal. The reality in varying degrees around the world is the process of 'democratization'. Democracy: 'people power' requires a prior integrated process. Demosophia: 'people wisdom'; also a complex and seemingly undervalued process. Richard Lowenberg On Thu, 7 Dec 2006, Douglass Carmichael wrote: > The problem with integrating all points of view is that it creates a single > system, and then the only game in town is, who owns it? Democracy is > actually furthered by incommensurability. > > > > The problem with corporations is, they are not organisms, but owned machines > for creating profit, and the rules of that game seem to lead inexorably to > concentrations of wealth and power ? tyranny. The democracy project is a > project in a state of multiple tensions. Its relation to corporations, > capitalism and markets is not well understood yet. Modeling of this would be > terrific. > > > > It has been said that we have a business culture that knows how to create > wealth, but not how to distribute it. > > > > Democracy I so far as it is based on the idea of the core identity of > persons as being equal, is not in keeping with evolution. It may be that > humans have the capacity, through democracy and the idea that ?all people > are created equal? to opt out of evolution for more human purpose. Evolution > as we know, leads to death and replacement of species. Maybe we don?t want > to go there. > > > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf > Of Mike Oliker > Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2006 9:51 AM > To: friam@redfish.com > Subject: [FRIAM] Democracy and evolution > > > > The Genius of James Madison was to see that a large country with many > factions would be freer from factionalism that a small country would be. > The factions would cancel each other out. Factionalism was the greatest > threat to democracy that the founders saw. Much the same applies to > corporations and the marketplace -- we are saturated with islands of self > interest, but have a system which has them cancel each other out -- except > insofar as they mostly line up, i.e. except for the widely held positions. > It's like filtering out all but the DC signal. > > > > Democracy as an evolutionary matter, once it is well established, is pretty > good at allowing agreement to emerge from the cacophony of viewpoints. It's > rapid spread (from one to more than 100 democracies in two centuries) > attests to it's evolutionary superiority. > > > > There has never been a time when those in power didn't believe in > suppressing all other viewpoints. It is the essence of all non-democracies. > In democracies people always want to achieve that, but they they are > structurally inhibited. If they ever succeed, then they are no longer have > a democracy. "Democracy is Well Established" == "No One can Suppress all > other Points of View" > > > > Mike Oliker > > > > > > > -- > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.15.14/578 - Release Date: 12/7/2006 > 1:27 AM > > ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.radlab.com ------------------------------------------------
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
