Democratic capitalism (capitalism + democracy) alongside a strong and efficient social welfare system is what I personally adhere to.
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I’m down with democratic capitalism as long as there are strong regulations and socialized services like medicine, fire, police, utilities, and roads. Does that make me a democratic socialist?
I also believe that everyone should pay their fucking taxes.
The USA has been on a downward slide after Reagan deregulated everything. There were a couple of tries at course correction afterward, but the current regime is going to dismantle everything as fast as they can.
I wake up at the start of the month and receive a list of work that needs to be done in my community from the AI that organizes human labor to most efficiently give us the max amount of time off possible.
I spend the morning relaxing at home and listening to music, planning out the upcoming month with my community team, it will take probably less than a week of work per person for the whole month and all real work that needs to be done. If I’m stressed or mentally ill i can reschedule any work day at any time and the AI will plan accordingly.
I can work with my community to improve the lives of the people in the general vicinity of my home on my work days, and enjoy my off days knowing I will never be manipulated by the system I depend on for survival.
On my days off I make use of my local services which allow for communities to setup their own workshops and lessons. I am allowed the time and materials within reason to pursue hobbies, crafts, and the arts.
I think most important of all is I would get to have agency in my life and the world around me, i would get to be more than a slave who worries about survival constantly. If I was actually allowed to use my free will I would feel free.
Fully automated luxury gay space communism, with a healthy dose of anarchism.
So Lexx?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords.
Socialism with a resource based economy
Representative democracy with all corporations above a certain size or value to be worker-owned and run.
I’d hope that size is like 10 max.
Something like that.
The exact number is negotiable, but my thinking is based in sympathy for obsessive artisans who want to maintain control over their work, but can’t do it all themselves, or subcontract it all. If John Metalworker hires 3 assistants to help him make chainmail, because chainmail is his passion, and then his 3 assistants vote for the firm to swap production to the more-profitable chain-fence industry, that’s a bit of a shit situation. If the terms are clear from the outset, small firms should be allowed to maintain different methods of control than worker-ran co-ops.
Then i think we’re largely in agreement. People should always be free to form small groups to follow their passion.
Though there is another concern. Co-ops that get larger than (guessing here) around 100 or so employees will start to act in the selfish greedy ways of current corporations. Even an employee owned co-op will eventually try to do everything in their power to make a buck. They’re directly incentivized to do so.
So aside from the outright regulation from the social democracy, I’ve been toying with the idea of a requirement for a publicly appointed employee(s) that have power over major decisions. They’d probably need to be appointed via sortion, recallable by the public, and their wages independent of wellbeing of the co-op.
Another concern is the prioritization of common goods, and the actual mechanisms for welfare and social safeguards. Some number of co-ops would need to exist as contractors of the state, providing critical needs paid for by the state.
Oh, I imagine there would need to be quite a few regulations and regulatory bodies to oversee such matters. Even if they were operating with the best of intentions, which are often in short supply, the behavior of entities with narrow goals must be regulated to ensure harmony with the broader goals of the population (like “Living in a society where the rivers don’t catch on fire if you drop a match in them”).
Power corrupts, and all that jazz - for workers as much as bureaucrats and private parties. Only by ensuring that there are numerous power bases with the ability to effectively restrain one-another, and relatively free entry/advancement in each, can a free equilibrium be maintained in a society.
Of course, we have quite a few regulations and regulatory bodies nowadays, so the only real question is in the details of it, rather than the general concept. The concept is obviously workable.
Only by ensuring that there are numerous power bases with the ability to effectively restrain one-another, and relatively free entry/advancement in each, can a free equilibrium be maintained in a society.
Agreed. Any system is going to require a strong system of checks and balances. That’s one of the few good ideas the founding fathers had. They gloriously fucked up the implementation obviously. But the core concept is critical.
Of course, we have quite a few regulations and regulatory bodies nowadays, so the only real question is in the details of it, rather than the general concept. The concept is obviously workable.
For now we do.
Agreed. Any system is going to require a strong system of checks and balances. That’s one of the few good ideas the founding fathers had. They gloriously fucked up the implementation obviously. But the core concept is critical.
Any system with checks and balances will fail when they are ignored. The current US situation is the continuation of at least a century of not holding the people who have tried to overthrow the governement accountable.
That’s where they fucked up the implementation. It’s being ignored because 1 party controls all 3 branches of the federal government.
They implemented a voting system that naturally devolves into a two parry system. Checks and balances don’t work when you are the one checking yourself.
For now we do.
More generally, I meant simply that government regulation is proven as a workable solution, conceptually, to restrain third-parties. The only remaining questions are tied up in ‘how to regulate the details’ and ‘how to maintain the regulatory body’, both of which we are currently experiencing… deep imperfections in the current implementation.
Agreed
Sounds pretty communist ngl
Yeah, my position is certainly influenced by socialist thought.
Yeah, and communism is scary, we don’t like things that are scary.
Anything else than whatever the fuck saudi is doing.
Republic or constitutional monarchy? Literally anything else is better at this point.
I think Eleanor Shellstrop captured it best:
Yeah, in America everyone DOES whatever they want, society DID break down, it’s terrible, and it’s great! You only look out for number one, scream at whoever disagrees with you, there are no bees because they all died, and if you need surgery you just beg for money on the Internet! It’s the perfect system!"
Anyone smart enough to not like it is stuck in a perpetual state similar to Chidi seeing the Time Knife.
Anarcho-syndicalist commune. Take it in turns to act as sort-of executive officer for the week, but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting by a simple majority, in the case of purely internal affairs, but by a two thirds majority, in the case of a major foreign policy decision.
How do you ensure people give up their turn?
How do you handle the complexity of providing for millions?
Help! Help! I’m being repressed!
Better then ladies lying in ponds distributing swords.
Right now, in this particular moment?
Every republican (and those who would vote republican if they were in the US) is round up and shot dead.
Pretty much any system the survivors come up with will be better.
Some post-scarcity, resource-based system with hints of communism and socialism. No classes, no currency, shared ownership of resources, full automation of labor through robotics. Life is no longer based on the pursuit of a better life through getting money, life would just be whatever you want it to be.
Wait, no currency?
I can understand if you want to do away with stock market contract tomfoolery. But me having to barter my goods and services all the time sounds exhausting.
Not bartering, but no commerce at all. By which I mean that anything you want you can get, no strings attached (within reason I suppose).
I think they’re thinking like Star Trek federation, there is no need for currency because everything can be made from a replicator.
Well, first we blast everyone in charge into the sun.
Then we find out who wants to be in charge in their place.
Then we round them up and blast them into the sun.
Then we find out who’s willing to volunteer to be in charge in their place.
Then we abduct them and blast them into the sun.
Then we assign the people in charge by lottery on 11-person committees on 6 month terms. At 1 month and 3 months we do a compulsory referendum on how they’re doing. If they fail, we blast them into the sun.
At the end of a 6 month term, a serving committee member can petition for one extra term. That is then voted on in a compulsory referendum. If they win, they get another term. Then we blast them into the sun.
Voting is always compulsory for all issues and all elections except in case of medical emergency. Failure to vote means we blast them into the sun.
A political career should not be desirable.
Speaking as a US citizen, I would like to move closer to the corporatist (not corporatocratic) models of countries like Sweden, Norway, and Germany. Capitalism and the economic strength that investment can bring tempered by strong unions at the national level to ensure that workers get good working and living conditions, with the government serving as a meeting grounds to hash out details. From my understanding Swedish law even mandates that worker unions have a place in government.
To me it seems ideal because it’s feasible. Corporations are already entrenched in the US government, the only missing pieces are unions large enough to be involved at the same level. I think we were on track to have that 50-60 years ago when unions like the UMWA represented over 400,000 workers by themselves, but unions have slowly been eroded over the decades. I think it would be easier to rebuild American unions and demand that corporations be kept in check than it would be to overhaul the current economic/political system into something entirely new.
We are already overhauling our system into something new. It’s called fascism, and its coming fast.
Something different, not new. 😉
Constitutional Monarchy with me as the monarch.
I’ll just create a proportional representation system for a unicameral parliament, open party lists (you vote for a party, then rank the party list). I’ll just sit back and watch. If someone does something stupid, I’ll use my monarch powers to veto that shit. I’ll ban all the nazi parties.
For succession, I’ll hand-pick a small council thay will collectively excerise the crown’s powers on my behalf after I die, they will have to be 2/3 in agreement to excersise the (limited) veto powers. Each council member picks a list of people who will succeed them, each member has a separate list of successors. When someone suceeds them, the successor can change the list.
I will be the permanent monarch in spirit, my ghost will forever be in the city, watching everyones every little move. They will merely excercise my powers on my behalf.
But yea, I’ll just chill and relax, I claim all the credit, the politicians take all the blame. A totally fair and balanced system 😉
/jk
I live alone in the woods.
What about your singing animal friends, and your singing LSD lab?
Okay, I’ll have some animal friends. But I’ll use safe, natural shrooms instead of LSD
