On 22.05.2012 00:59, Douglas Lucas wrote:
Hi everyone,
Heather Marsh, former editor of WikiLeaks Central and one of the
people whos working on The Global Square project -- she tweets as
@GeorgieBC -- has been writing about governance through stigmergy,
concentric user groups, and epistemic communities. Applying the model
of contributions to Net projects such as Wikipedia to governance. I
dont have time to summarize her thoughts accurately, and to be
honest,
Im still thinking them over. Maybe Ill invite her to join the list
and
talk about them. But here are the main links if you want to look
yourself:
Not sure if she's still hanging around Berlin, but if she there's a
good chance she'll join me for drinks this evening, if she does I'll
mention this list.
One thing that strikes me as missing from these conversations (both
on
this list and elsewhere) is the lack of discussion about real-world
transitioning to whatever proposed abstract system.
Indeed. Especially lacking are conversations about overcoming the
"Political Aspects" as Kalecki put it. The stark fact that the current
systems of exploitation and inequality give tremendous power and wealth
to certain beneficiaries, and thus any transitioning will first to been
to overcome conflict.
The lofty and
perhaps implausible (in my opinion) goal of removing coercion and
still maintaining social insurance and minority rights, or any other
abstract system we discuss, [...]
Well said.
This article by Peter Cooper on compulsion and taxation is well worth
reading:
http://heteconomist.com/?p=646
Here is an excerpt:
"It is possible to conceive of economic systems without taxation. For
instance, a future socialist society could, in principle, operate
without taxation. However, in the absence of taxation, there would need
to be a high degree of spontaneous, voluntary cooperation for there not
to emerge some other form of state compulsion (perhaps Stalinist
police-state measures, state brutality, etc). Under capitalism, taxation
creates space for public-sector activity – i.e. it enables a form of
collective, social activity. It does this by restricting private-sector
spending power, thereby freeing up resources for public-sector use.
[...] In other words, taxation makes a limited form of social
cooperation and public-sector production possible without, under normal
circumstances, requiring more brutal forms of state compulsion."
--
Dmytri Kleiner
Venture Communist
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