Implementing Democracy 1.01 in Iran

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Class-ridden is precisely the thing that holds you back as a society. Americans of English descent (and one side of my own family came here from south of Norwich in the seventeenth century) in considerable measure came to America to escape that restraint. Americans are breakers of restraints. The English will draw a line and stay behind it; for Americans, lines are things to cross. This makes America a bit disorderly, but it is also the key to our successes.

The more you turn towards libertarian ways and away from the welfare state, the more you will succeed, even unto having wealth like you did in the days of empire, and on a better moral basis to boot. In my view, there's nothing here to not like.

I don't look for you to turn into a full-on republic vice a constitutional monarchy because overall you'd rather be a monarchy, being in that habit. (The ones out of the habit moved over here.) Having hit upon a way to have a national symbol in the person of a Sovereign, and a constitution however unwritten it be, you've got a good thing going, really.

"By what right do you and your ilk decide what is right for the world?" Oh, the same right by which you did, for the same reasons, and quite frankly in the identical spirit: you are of our ilk thereby. The just plain English idea that limited government is good government (and that government is best that governs least) is the core idea that we Americans try and spread. It is presently most successful in the lands of English speech, but since all other inhabited lands are peopled by, well, people, we suspect they can do every bit as well, as long as the slavemakers can't spoil things. In too many countries the slavemakers do. What an abomination.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

It's right for everybody on the planet to succeed and live well, Dana.

Most places, they don't. I call this a shame.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

It's right for everybody on the planet to succeed and live well, Dana.

Most places, they don't. I call this a shame.

That does not mean "be just like us". It is not the same thing.

[DanaC]

Okay. So, if we all do things the American way, everybody on the planet will succeed and live well?
Could you define success in this context please. And, if everybody deserves to succeed and live well, why does America have 12.7% of its population living in poverty? (the highest in the developed world)

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Okay. So, if we all do things the American way, everybody on the planet will succeed and live well?

It works if you're a human, yes. America is chiefly inhabited by these.

What I'm saying is that we did it, and therefore so can you.

Could you define success in this context please. And, if everybody deserves to succeed and live well, why does America have 12.7% of its population living in poverty? (the highest in the developed world)

The government bureaucracies in charge of doing something about poverty have been known to redefine poverty upward. Thus they impress the gullible about how necessary they are. American poverty bears a surprising resemblance to Central and South American middle class.

Your thinking, Dana, is being very heavily colored by welfare-statism. The problem with the welfare state, and this is a problem that is sickening the entire EU economy, is that it raises the cost of employment far too much to allow the economic growth the EU's populations could actually accomplish given their head. It's basically the same effect as overtaxing, and often takes that exact form. The welfare state attempts to offer very extensive guarantees of some kind of economic maintenance. I have become suspicious of such guarantees, for guarantees suck the life out of opportunity. Guarantees are the stuff of totalitarianism. A free market, with as little as possible of the parasitic drag of taxation clinging to it, makes for unequal distributions of wealth, but there is a lot more wealth to go around in general, and everyone gets to cut their own piece of the pie, as their ability, fortune, and ethics allow. Bad ethics eventually lead to bad fortune, even in the freest of markets. For a nasty example of such, take drug trafficking: no ethics, and all takeovers are about as hostile as hostile is likely to get -- bang bang bang, bada-bing, bada-boom.

The free marketplace requires you to grow your skills, and it feels very good when you've got it mastered. Little by little if need be, every day that you do something better than you did, you're making yourself a better life. To set Marx on his head: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need -- and money is how the score is kept."

[DanaC]

In my view, there's nothing here to not like.

And in my viewthere's plenty to like and plenty to dislike.

Oh, the same right by which you did, for the same reasons, and quite frankly in the identical spirit: you are of our ilk thereby.

The only right we had, was the right borne of power. We had the ships, the guns and the political will. That didn't make it right that we did what we did. Personally, I think we did a lot of damage and stunted a lot of cultures that had their own parallel path of development to follow. We also left behind several power-vacuums, a multitude of civil wars and innumerable grievances which continued to play out long after we retreated back behind our garden hedge:P

Also, whilst we may have spouted about our governance being 'for the good of the world' and whilst we may have claimed that we were 'civilising' the nations we took under our aegis, the reality was very different. In reality, we were acting entirely in self-interest, and didn't really believe the 'natives' could ever truly become civilised....not really proper people you see? What we in fact did, was tramp about the world, rape their resources, install ourselves as rulers and then redraw their maps and borders with gay abandon.

The just plain English idea that limited government is good government (and that government is best that governs least) is the core idea that we Americans try and spread.

Yes, we used to have that attitude. Then we realised that without some kind of safeguards many of our people were lving in poverty. We also realised that without some kind of proscription against it, many employers were abusing their role and their workers were remaining poor. We also realised that, if left to private enterprise many of the things we needed as a nation were taking second place to the desire to make profit.

In short, we changed our minds and decided that government has a role and a duty to ensure that all our people are provided for at least with the basics of survival.

[Hippikos]

The just plain English idea that limited government is good government (and that government is best that governs least) is the core idea that we Americans try and spread.

Hmmm... according statistics your present guvmint is the largest civil government, measured in budgetary terms, in history. Population has doubled since 1930, but government spending is 27 times higher than in 1930.

[DanaC]

.......hang on a minute.....

Class-ridden is precisely the thing that holds you back as a society.

This one got past me.
In what way do you consider that we are being held back? I think we do quite well overall. We have our problems (as do you) we have some people out of work (as do you) we have arguments about immigration (as do you).

How's your national debt lookin these days? Lookin forward to the upcoming power struggle with China?

Britain is no longer an empire. Good. We don't need to be an Empire.. We're quite happy being able to more or less provide a reasonable standard of living to most of our citizens.

So, how are we 'held back'?

[Aliantha]

What I'm wondering is why anyone would think the US is a classless society. Of course, I mean in a socially hierarchical way and not in a way which would suggest that citizens of the US have no class.

[9th Engineer]

Oh, we arn't classless by any stretch of the imagination. The closest thing I would say to that is that we have very good mobility between classes.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by 9th Engineer

Oh, we arn't classless by any stretch of the imagination. The closest thing I would say to that is that we have very good mobility between classes.

I would say we used to have very good mobility between classes. Now the mobility appears to be downward.

[9th Engineer]

I have a personal theory that the size of the middle class in a healthy economy probably follows a sinusoidal pattern. People are not stupid, but most are lazy (used in the sense of not doing more work than they have to). We saw a boom in our middle class in the generation(s) following the great depression/WW2 because of this, children growing up knew that they didn't have much to fall back on if they failed to become self reliant, hence greater productivity and a larger population of successful people. Now we see a generation that has grown up with the belief that everything will be ok no matter what, they think that even if they don't do well in school and have to work minimum wage someone will be there to take them in and back them up. Hence, more students take more risk because of this illusionary safty net (moral for parents, make it very clear that you are taking the house key back after graduation). We will have a generation that lives in poorer conditions and their children will be more ambitious in order to escape from it.

It doesn't matter if we know history or not, we still repeat it. Humans are very simple animals.

[xoxoxoBruce]

That won't hold water because we are now more productive than ever and working more hours than we have since the early 20th century.

[tw]

Originally Posted by 9th Engineer

I have a personal theory that the size of the middle class in a healthy economy probably follows a sinusoidal pattern. ... We will have a generation that lives in poorer conditions and their children will be more ambitious in order to escape from it.

If that were true, then baby boomers should be leaving a poorer American economy. Until recented perverted by George Jr voodoo economics, the baby boomers were finally eliminating massive American government and trade inbalances.

One curious fact: preceding the great depression, wealth began to concentrate among a few 'elite'. This never reoccurred in America (as the middle class grew in numbers and percentage) until recently. We are now witnessing again, a massive concentration of wealth among the few elites.

Whereas top management once earned 14 times the income of an average worker, today that number has climbed to something well over 300. Elitism has pushed massive wealth among the few. Incoming are now falling (inflation is higher than wage increases). And yet the super rich are increasing their percentage of the American pie.

[DanaC]

9th and Rich, you both make very good points. In my country we still have the remnants of 'cultural' class distinctions that were a centuries in the making. That said, those distinctions have evaporated more over the last twenty years than in preivious centuries. What we have now, is something more akin to the American 'class system' which is based more on income than anything else.

There is still a cultural element though and this can be seen in your culture too. It is however a more modern cultural element. You have 'Trailer trash', we have 'Chavs'. These are our culturally lower class icons.

This of course is acceptable in the private sector. It's when public services are affected that I begin to get annoyed.

Out of interest, what areas are considered 'public service'?