Nick made good points but I disagrre with some. "We need to distinguish between capitalism as a system of regulated entrepreneurialism (the social democratic model) and capitalism as a system that permits accelerating accumulation of individual wealth resulting in increased inequality and denial of opportunity. The latter is political and social, the former economic. Command economies"

I disagree with Nick regarding the social democratic model being "economic". Both, I believe are social and political in operation but perhaps economic in intent. Regulation is obviously vital for shared opportunity but for the US seems to be confined to the period after WWII, cut short by a resurgence of conservative forces which with relentless focus took control of government, media, and the economy. Most other periods of our history have seen capitalism mostly unrestrained.

Certainly the individual is the most creative asset, especially in contrast to the exploitive sterility of those in control: the financial sector is especially sterile and executive leadership (CEOs) obscenely rewarded due to power over boards not productivity.

The implementation of your system, Tom, will be a herculean task.

Jim

Tom,

I have been thinking about what you said about redundancy and waste being assets. Modern warehousing, logistics and distribution is set up to minimize redundancy and waste and to avoid unnecessary storage, in favour of "just in time" deliveries and dispatch. Large warehouses have automated computer run systems that "calculate" what has to be where and when and make it happen. The wisdom of our time being that there isn't money to be made on having a warehouse full of stuff going nowhere fast. Is that a problem for your system?

On the other hand I have heard discussion of the need to go back to old ways in hospitals. Trying to save money by cutting redundancy in the NHS has lead to not having enough beds when an epidemic or large tragedy happens.Patients having to sleep in corridors. It also doesn't allow for wards to be closed and thoroughly cleaned to avoid hospital acquired infections. If patient welfare and health is put above cost cutting then redundancy is indeed an asset.

Georgina, you're absolutely right. To sacrifice effectiveness for efficiency always leaves a gap of scarcity.

In wartime, we never worry about how efficient our supply systems are -- we go all out to get beans and bullets and medical care to the fighters. If we acted the same toward all peoples, as if they were on the front line of fighting for the survival and well being of our human species, we might well make war itself obsolete. We at least owe it to ourselves to try.

Best,

Tom

Hi Vladimir,

quote: In a world threatened by its own head-on clashes

of self-destructive tendencies, lateral distribution

of communications technology and resources - a

globally linked supply chain controlled by high

tech information systems in a robust network -

helps dampen inequality and maximally

enfranchise individuals for an exponential

growth in creativity and wealth generation.

Sideways is the only rational trajectory.

We currently have such a system related to fossil fuels. Coalitions create wars in countries with oil, to steal their natural resources. The people of Iraq get effectively nothing from the export of their resources. This is repeated over and over.

Without systems of broad ethical consideration being built into a global logistics system, a few will benefit while the majority will suffer.

For any major decision, the masses must have sufficient time to reflect upon the broad complexities of ethical consideration before being approved by the masses for implementation. Additionally, the masses need education related to assess broad ethical consideration.

Potentially all corruption can be largely eliminated. Basically, state elected doctors of science and philosophy guided by their state's constitution, helps build the NSA monitoring and analysis systems and manages how the information collected is used.

eliminate-all-corruption.pbworks.com

Imagine the tremendous resources that would be used to take control of a centralized global logistics system. Thousands of people selected to support corrupting influence.

To make your proposal practical and ethical requires a method of eliminating corruption.

    Thanks heaps for the comment on my essay Tom. Don't forget to rate it if you get the chance. Good luck!

    Hello Thomas

    I've just started reading some of the interesting essays, and I quite enjoyed reading yours. I suppose that's because many of the basic assumptions appear to be in the same ballpark as those that underlay my essay # 2078.

    You state: "Bar-Yam introduced multi-scale variety, the idea that independent subsystems allowed to organize around task coordination at different times on different scales, makes the larger system effective." Yes, or the synergy that makes the sum of the parts much greater than the whole. I suggest, however, that the existing growth drive corporate capitalism cannot be fixed, and we need a significant system reboot with new and clear definition of wealth to be used as an integral regulatory control medium of the dynamic system. Perhaps sideways with a down slope will be needed for a few years after our century of exponential growth.

    I wish you well in the contest.

    Don Chisholm

      I'm not Vladimir, though that's a nice Freudian twist. :-)

      Yes, I agree with your point that corruption must be obviated to the greatest possible extent, for any cooperative system to work. I think the essay's proposal is quite practical, though, for minimizing the role of the "masses" in favor of maximal individual decision-making and self determination locally, to stabilize distribution of resources globally. I find great power in Bar-Yam's result:

      "In considering the requirements of multi-scale variety more generally, we can state that for a system to be effective, it must be able to coordinate the right number of components to serve each task, while allowing the independence of other sets of components to perform their respective tasks without binding the actions of one such set to another."

      The motivation for corruption is blunted by interlocking checks, in such a system. The knife-cake analogy I use is designed to assure the independence of necessary and irreducible elements of cooperation. One element is useless without the other. This principle applies to every scale of activity.

      All best,

      Tom

      Thanks, Don. I'll certainly get to your essay when I can.

      I was hoping to make clear that "wealth" should not be measured in the accumulation of commodities; rather, it should be measured in the variety of resources produced and distributed in a robust network of redundant nodes with shifting hubs of economic activity, which helps close gaps of scarcity, and ensures a continuous trajectory toward equilibrium.

      The right wing of the conservative movement in the U.S. has adopted the catchphrase "job creators" to characterize employers. The focus of a net-centric economy is on "wealth creators." That is the essential difference between a system that aims to control people, and one that aims for cooperative control of resources, in which individuals are maximally enfranchised to create, contribute and participate on their own terms.

      Best,

      Tom

      James, I share your concern for the radical takeover of the American economy by the redistribution of commodities to a few "job creators" who intend to steer the social policy as well as the economic fortunes of our nation.

      I think the task of reversing the trend, though, is made much easier by the exponential growth of network technologies.

      We'll have a lot to talk about.

      Best,

      Tom

      Tom, let me add this thought about complexity and the Israel-Palestine problem:

      Before Zionism took hold, there was an indigenous Palestinian Arab Jewish community living with the Arab Muslim and Christian population, and particularly in Jerusalem. The name " Jewish Quarter" in the Old City testifies to that. The Jews of those days spoke Arabic and rubbed shoulders with Christian and Muslim Arab Palestinians. Within the crowded souks of the walled city what I like to think of a peaceful rich social ecosystem developed. There was a dense network of social, economic interaction but not perhaps religious, as each group had their own revered place of worship. There was occasional conflict as would happen in any crowded community, but none of the outright hostility that came later with mono-polar Zionism (their slogan was "A people without a land for a land without a people [sic]" .) The Judaisation of Jerusalem either by forced expulsion, destruction of whole Arab neighbourhoods, or more quietly by laws and other measures designed to make the Palestinian Arabs leave - and which have succeeded to a large measure. So much for the complexity that your Israeli co-author Bar-Yam seems to advocate.

      Please pardon the bitter note here and make an effort to learn the facts about Palestine, rather than rely on what Zionist propaganda has so successfully spoon-fed the American people. Einstein's disgust with Zionist terrorism, and his advocating equal rights in Palestine for the Arabs and Jewish communities is one of the reasons why I wrote my essay around Einstein's happy persona.

      Best wishes,

      Vladimir

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      • Post #60

      Vladimir, I expect that we have the same feelings about discussing this issue, somewhere between leaving it alone and letting it all out.

      Einstein was a secularist. The founders of modern Israel were secularists. The majority of Israelis are secularists.

      Can a modern secular and democratic state survive without conflict, surrounded by countries ruled by 14th century religious oligarchies who openly call for the utter destruction of Israel? I doubt it.

      Zionism is not the enemy. The enemy is an Islamic collective that has used the Palestinian Arab dislocation since 1967 as an excuse to maintain its control over political power in the region.

      The early Zionists (and I mean the modern, 19th and 20th century Zionists, since there have actually been three Zionist movements in Jewish history) were not advocating a Jewish-ruled state; they advocated religious freedom and safety for Jews, which with the exception of the U.S., was to be found hardly anywhere in the world. And that includes the Palestine under Islamic rule -- Jews were not fully enfranchised citizens of that region. They were barely tolerated as subjects of the caliphate. Jerusalem was not open to Jewish participation; religious Jews had no access to the Western Wall under Islamic rule until the capture of the city in 1967. Only the most naive of us could think that Jerusalem would be an open city under Islamic religious rule.

      It is my perception that neither Islamic nor Christian theologists fully understand that Judaism is not a mystical religion. The former two are missionary religions with apocalyptic prophecies to fulfill; it is unfortunate that those prophecies have their origin in Hebrew history, for in the Jewish tradition the prophecies are warnings, not predictions.

      At any rate, Bar-Yam does not deserve your indictment. He is a scientist, same as Einstein, seeking a rational solution to an irrational condition, not just in Israel but all over the world. If you would honor Einstein, you would honor that legacy.

      There can be peace and equality in Israel. It will not come at the price of Israel's, and the Jewish peoples', right to exist.

      Best,

      Tom

      I really don't understand this log-in problem.

      Tom,

      Thanks for the response. We can go on endlessly discussing the various aspects of this problem, but to give a short response: it is not a religious problem here, but one of the dispossession of an entire people from the land they and their ancestors had lived in. I and most Palestinian families still possess the keys of their homes they had to leave in Palestine to become refugees and watch while the Jewish people 'returned' to a land they read about in their Bibles. I put 'return' in quotes because arguably most of the Jews of European origin (Einstein included) became Jews when the Khazars converted to Judaism in Mediaeval times, as Arthur Koestler argued in his book "The 13th Tribe". You say most Israelis are secularists, so why claim a land 'promised by God'. The regrettable trend of present Islamic religious fundamentalism sweeping the Arab World has nothing to do with the root causes of the Palestinian's right to return to their homeland. And apart from the crazies (and there are plenty of those on both sides) nobody is challenging the Jewish people's right to exist, merely for the privilege of living together in one secular state (the PLO's position) or in two adjacent neighbourly states. Israel has the power and is using it to thwart any peace plans that threatens to lessen its domination and occupation of Palestine. But the history of the Holy Land has seen such power crumble again and again, and as the Psalms say "the poor shall inherit the land".

      Peace Salam Shalom

      Vladimir

      Vladimir

      I think we had better stop here, before you throw out The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

      Dear Tom I do not see how Russian pogroms and European anti-Semitism last century (the alleged "Protocols") justify what Israelis are doing in Palestine today. I agree we should stop here - it is not fair to those readers not interested in the details of this particular conflict. Humanity has to learn to steer the future through the quagmire of such conflicts, but we all must make an effort to understand the other side's views and positions.

      Best wishes

      Vladimir

        This is the end of this dialogue for me. Just to be clear, though, the reference was not meant to address pogroms in Europe, it was directed toward the persistent hateful propaganda meant to de-legitimize the Jewish people with mythical bullshit. I know you made these uninformed remarks innocently, so I let it go once.

        Dear Mr. Ray

        Your essay was very interesting to read and I do hope that it does well in the competition.

        Regards,

        Joe Fisher

          Dear Tom,

          Your essay is one of the few entries other than mine which has a political component, and like mine, it will probably thereby repel some readers. However, you also introduced a number of interesting concepts from complex systems theory. I agree that research in this area can only help us understand better how to steer the future as a society.

          I liked the analogy with the cake and the knife, although I must admit it escaped me how the transition of the US to a service economy can be seen in terms of this metaphor as a transition from owning the cake to the control over the knife. Surely the US cannot be regarded as a "monolith", and if one considers individual service providers, is it not the case that one can find alternatives, particularly in Canada and Europe?

          Also, I think the case if the 85 richest people voluntarily gave up part of their wealth they would end up in some sense "wealthier" is probably not going to convince them. Perhaps a bit more detail about how this could be implemented would have helped.

          I am thinking in particular in terms of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It seems that once one has reached the wealth level that one can get anything that money can buy, if there is still somewhere a "hole" that needs to be filled, then trying to fill it by acquiring ever more "stuff" is probably futile. It would seem more likely that the highest level of actualization could be achieved by looking into concrete ways how one can take on responsibility for (and thereby *claim ownership* of) aspects of making the world a better place. I wonder how many of the super-rich elite think about these things in that way, but I suspect not a large fraction. Bill Gates seems like a person who has given this thought and acted accordingly.

          In any event, your essay is very eloquently written and makes some thought-provoking points.

          All the best,

          Armin

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            • Post #69

            Armin, thank you so much for your thoughtful comments.

            The reference to the 85 getting richer is actually a warning not to "eat the seed corn." The world economy has gotten to be a 2-tier system wherein a small group of the rich trade among themselves, which shrinks the capital resources of the poor and middle class. This is bad for everyone, including the rich, because they are treating capital as a commodity; the free market has become a worldwide case of insider trading, dependent on inflation to succeed and dependent on recession to sustain that success. It's a self-destructive loop, though, when recession becomes depression, the system crashes and everyone loses.

            Another negative outcome of this dynamic is that it forces the wealthy to shift from controlling resources to controlling people -- we have created opportunity for the Rupert Murdochs and the Koch brothers of the world to openly subvert the democratic process (and it is getting even worse in the U.S., with a stream of partisan Supreme Court decisions in the last 15 years), because they have no more economic opportunity. Their success is not measured in good roads, safe buildings and clean water; it is measured in the extent to which they can influence social policy. This is a step backward to the robber barons of a century ago.

            The cake-knife metaphor is meant to underscore the difference between control of people and control of resources. If the former is relinquished, the latter has a chance to flourish -- and the lateral integration of communication with laterally distributed physical resources has the best chance to make it possible, in my opinion.

            Best,

            Tom