• buckrogers said on Sep 29, 2007....

  You are certainly the idealist, maxwell777, but I don't think you are quite in touch with the world as it exists.  As I read your blog, I see a similar vein of thought in Theodore Kaczyniski's "Unabomer's Manifesto", where he believes the industrial revolution is destroying the earth and that everybody ought to go back to living as small, primative tribes...in autonomy...as he describes it.
   
  Well, most of us watch the TV program "Survivor" and see the problem the contestants have in merely providing food and shelter.  Some of them have no problem doing their fair share of the work, while others simply lay around, providing very little in supplying the barest needs. 
   
  I've raised four children and the first thing you find out about kids is they are all different and have different needs, and require individual attention.  Some have no trouble taking care of themselves, while others require close supervision, for example, to merely brush their teeth.  The point is somebody has to take the bull by the horns to get very ordinary things done for basic survival. 
   
  In this city of Utopia that you propose, who takes care of bringing in the water and carrying away the sewage?  That's hard, dirty work that very few people will want to do, unless you give them an incentive for doing it.  Who will clean the streets and pick up the garbage? 
   
  You talk of all the free sex--the dream of all young men--and I don't think you'll find too many women who are willing to trade shopping at the mall to living in a situation where they have to stamp ants and swat flies and mosquitos.  You wouldn't want the girls, anyway, smelling somewhere between manure and pond scum. 
   
  Your ideas sound wonderful, maxwell777, but are not feasible on this planet.  The people who live closest to autonomy are the one's living under freeway over passes or in dumpsters.    

• MAXWELL777 said on Sep 30, 2007....

  Hi Buck Rogers!

  I appreciate you taking the time, and making the effort to read my entire post.

   

  Now, kindly allow me to dissect your comment and respond (quite lengthily) to various pieces of it in turn.

   

  “You are certainly the idealist, maxwell777, but I don't think you are quite in touch with the world as it exists.”

   

  Hey! A lot of people say that about me!

   

  IF I really am out of touch with the world as it currently exists, it’s because it’s such a violent, brutally oppressive, unfair place.

   

  I think the world is evil!  And who wants to be “in touch” with evil???

   

  I much prefer dreaming about making a better world!  And trying to come up with “blue prints” if you will, for building it.

   

  That’s why I’m blogging, so I can share my vision of a happier tomorrow with others.

   

  My mother use to say:

  “Son, you have to be wise enough to dream of the most beautiful, fantastic and incredible things, and fool enough to actually believe that those things can come true!”

   

  If you ask me the world needs more such “fools”, especially “fools” in high places, with a lot of power, so they can work to change things for the better.

   

  “.  As I read your blog, I see a similar vein of thought in Theodore Kaczynski’s "Unabomber’s Manifesto", where he believes the industrial revolution is destroying the earth and that everybody ought to go back to living as small, primitive tribes...in autonomy...as he describes it.”

   

  How the hell can you compare me to Kaczynski or his Neo-Primitivist, Malthusian ,social Darwinist worldview???

   

  Kaczynski thought it was just fine if billions of people died of starvation and disease by giving up technology!

   

  My conception of Anarcho- Gesellschaft and my Non-Authoritarian Super-Welfare-Stateism are the absolute antithesis of what the Unabomber wanted.

   

    “Well, most of us watch the TV program "Survivor" and see the problem the contestants have in merely providing food and shelter.  Some of them have no problem doing their fair share of the work, while others simply lay around, providing very little in supplying the barest needs.”

   

  My system of TOTAL FREEDOM would only work in the post-scarcity fully industrialized first world nations of this planet.

   

  After they achieve it they’ll have to lend the third world a hand so that they too can achieve it some day.

   

  Until then we’ll have to work for equality and justice in the poorest nations of the earth.

   

  You see, equality, and justice are prerequisites for TOTAL FREEDOM.

   

  I have yet to entreat on these ideals but I will in future blog entries.

   

  “In this city of Utopia that you propose, who takes care of bringing in the water and carrying away the sewage?  That's hard, dirty work that very few people will want to do, unless you give them an incentive for doing it.  Who will clean the streets and pick up the garbage?” 

  In such a society people will only work because they want to, not because they have to.

  As for those jobs which are naturally, boring, dirty, heavy, hard, stressful, or dangerous but which nevertheless need to get done?????

  Well…. pay people enough, they’ll do almost anything.

  Hell!  Give me $200 per hour, and I’ll do the dirtiest job going!

  So, I’d pay people with the worst, most dangerous, heaviest, and most low status jobs the highest pay scales?

  Today in our upside down, capitalist pig society, we do just the opposite.   

  The Anarcho-Communist Alexander Berkman: understood this too:

  “ Persons doing the most useful work are lowest in the social scale when their employment is ill paid. Should something happen, however, that would cause the street cleaner to get 100 dollars a day…..the "filthy laborer" …. Would become the much-sought man of good income.”

  Still, many people don’t like to work long hours or work at all for that matter……and they shouldn’t have to.

   I’ve got one compound word for you: SERVO-MECHANISMS.

  Cybernation and robotic technology is becoming more and more sophisticated everyday; as it does people will have to work less and less.

  Moreover, under the system of Anarcho- Gesellschaft, I envision many jobs & positions (e.g. military, prisons, & much government & corporate administration etc.)would simply no longer exist.

   Thus, more hands would be free to do useful labor at excellent wages.

  To again quote Berkman, this guy foresaw all this way back in 1929! :

  “It can be statistically proven that three hours' work a day, at most, is sufficient to feed, shelter, and clothe the world and supply it not only with necessities but also with all modern comforts of life.…… consider the amount of work done in present-day society that would become unnecessary under Anarchist conditions. Take the armies and navies of the world, and think how many millions of men would be released for useful and productive effort once war is abolished, as would of course be the case under Anarchy

  The large business classes with their clerks, assistants, agents, and commercial travelers; the courts with their judges, record keepers, bailiffs, etc.; the legion of attorneys with their staffs; the militia and police forces; the churches and monasteries; the charity institutions and poorhouses; the prisons with their wardens, officers, keepers, and the non-productive convict population; the army of advertisers and their helpers, whose business it is to persuade you to buy what you don't want or need, not to speak of the numerous elements that live luxuriously in entire idleness. All these mount into the millions in every country.

  Now, if all those millions would apply themselves to useful labor, would the worker have to drudge eight hours a day?

  Can you doubt that even the hardest toil would become a pleasure instead of the cursed slavery it is at present, if only three hours a day were required, and that under the most sanitary and hygienic conditions, in an atmosphere of brotherhood and respect for labor?

  But it is not difficult to foresee the day when even those short hours would be still further reduced. For we are constantly improving our technical methods, and new labor saving machinery is being invented all the time. Mechanical progress means less work and greater comforts, as you can see by comparing life in the United States with that in China or India….. The advance of science and invention signifies more leisure for the pursuits we love.”

  Well…does that answer your questions about who will do the work, and how it will get done?

   

   

   

Comment on "INSTALLMENT # 2.A"

Currently tagged	POLITICS PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY politics personal philosophy (Click to add tags below)
Tag this post	(Separate tags using commas, for example: New York, dating, vegetarian)
Your comment