The ideal government.

[Pasong Tirad]

A confederation of freely associating municipalities governed by directly democratic neighborhood assemblies.

Where booze is free.

Voting on everything would be hell.

You can always just not participate I suppose.

[The Second JELLIAN Republic]

Voting on everything would be hell.

You can always just not participate I suppose.

Cough cough *republic* cough

[Pasong Tirad]

You can always just not participate I suppose.

Cough cough *federalism* cough

Nah I'm good thanks

[The Second JELLIAN Republic]

Cough cough *federalism* cough

Nah I'm good thanks

Fixed, lol, idk how I said federalism. I meant republic.

[Joohan]

Voting on everything would be hell.

You can always just not participate I suppose.

And then it's just the crazy people and losers who have too much time on their hands voting.

Normal working people aren't really informed enough, and can't bothered with learning everything necessary in order to make informed and intelligent votes on all the matters of politics.

Edit: we elect other losers for that

[The Second JELLIAN Republic]

Well, why not have a professional board of advisors, that know their stuff, and can objectively give information to the public and to politicians.

[Engadine Mcdonalds 1997]

Ideal government? A militant anti-kakistocracy, where only the best, brightest and wisest should be anywhere near the reigns of power, in the style of a dictatorship of the proletariat. No 'donations', no corporate interests, everyone being well educated on policies in place and proposed ideas with their full ramifications known to everyone.

[Pasong Tirad]

You can always just not participate I suppose.

And then it's just the crazy people and losers who have too much time on their hands voting.

Normal working people aren't really informed enough, and can't bothered with learning everything necessary in order to make informed and intelligent votes on all the matters of politics.

Edit: we elect other losers for that

See this is the problem with this kind of hypothetical. You're changing just one aspect of society (i.e. how decisions are made in a community or region) and leaving mostly everything else unchanged. Because, upon reading my hypothetical ideal government, in your head, the world's economic system and many other aspects of how society works has not changed for some reason. This is why you immediately jumped to the conclusion that a lot of folks won't have the time or energy to participate in direct democratic systems of governance, as though folks are still working 40 hours per week - or, if they're based in the US, probably closer to 50 I'm assuming – and at the end of the day all they want to do would be to rest up to prepare for the next day's grueling underpaid labor.

But if you read my response and then read Page's response from the first page, the kind of governance systems they and I are thinking of are quite literally the same, just phrased differently. And since mine had the phrase "direct democracy" you latched onto that immediately and just assumed that nothing else in my hypothetical world has changed. Which isn't an unfair assumption to make, I suppose. You don't know me and my response was a 16-word, two-sentence reply to a question that is complicated and is something I don't have hours to spend typing up. You just saw what you wanted to see and then replied based off that, using what you already know about your own society around you. I suppose your own local meetings are filled with, as you called them "crazy people" and "losers."

[Unified Communist Councils]

And then it's just the crazy people and losers who have too much time on their hands voting.

Normal working people aren't really informed enough, and can't bothered with learning everything necessary in order to make informed and intelligent votes on all the matters of politics.

Edit: we elect other losers for that

See this is the problem with this kind of hypothetical. You're changing just one aspect of society (i.e. how decisions are made in a community or region) and leaving mostly everything else unchanged. Because, upon reading my hypothetical ideal government, in your head, the world's economic system and many other aspects of how society works has not changed for some reason. This is why you immediately jumped to the conclusion that a lot of folks won't have the time or energy to participate in direct democratic systems of governance, as though folks are still working 40 hours per week - or, if they're based in the US, probably closer to 50 I'm assuming – and at the end of the day all they want to do would be to rest up to prepare for the next day's grueling underpaid labor.

But if you read my response and then read Page's response from the first page, the kind of governance systems they and I are thinking of are quite literally the same, just phrased differently. And since mine had the phrase "direct democracy" you latched onto that immediately and just assumed that nothing else in my hypothetical world has changed. Which isn't an unfair assumption to make, I suppose. You don't know me and my response was a 16-word, two-sentence reply to a question that is complicated and is something I don't have hours to spend typing up. You just saw what you wanted to see and then replied based off that, using what you already know about your own society around you. I suppose your own local meetings are filled with, as you called them "crazy people" and "losers."

Their critique is based on the assumption of ceteris paribus, a Latin phrase meaning "other things equal or held constant," which economists use to help isolate the effect of one variable and establish a causational relationship. What they fail to take into account is the concept of democratic ecological planning, wherein Social Ownership itself, not “the market” or a Bureaucratic Politburo, makes the main decisions about the economy. Your model is to insinuate a transformation in the way of life, with its new mode of production and consumption, some sectors of the economy must be suppressed (e.g., the extraction of fossil fuels implicated in the climate crisis) or restructured, while new sectors are developed. Following on from this, direct democracy will give rise to an economic transformation that would be accompanied by the active pursuit of full employment with equal conditions of work and wages. Direct democracy is grounded in egalitarian vision, the core essential both for building a just society and for engaging the support of the working class for the structural transformation of the productive forces.

---

Likewise, the "why" of my ideal government shall be addressed in detail.

Suppose that if under other peoples' ideal governments I still keep going to the same job I do OTL, I'd keep doing the same shit, and anything I invented in my spare time would be immediately eaten up by those with the capital to produce and sell it more efficiently than me then they are failing to deliver the revolution necessary for actualizing the Kingdom of Freedoms as stipulated by Karl Marx.

My vision of ideal government is irreconcilable with private control of the means of production and of the planning process. In particular, investments and technological innovation are to serve the common good through direct industrial action, autocratic decision-making must be taken away from the banks and capitalist enterprises that currently dominate, and put in the public domain under the control of [Workers' Councils]. Then, the community itself, and neither an oligarchy of property owners nor an elite of techno-bureaucrats, will democratically decide which product lines are to be privileged, and how resources are to be invested in education, health, and culture. Major decisions on investment priorities—such as terminating all coal-fired facilities or directing agricultural subsidies to organic production—would be made upon direct popular consensus; a [Democratic Ecological Planning].

How this self-governance will manifest begins at the most fundamental unit of organization, the local [Syndicat], a free association of self-governing peoples. These communities would be in touch with other communities through a local [Bourse du travail] (“labour exchange”), which would function as a combination of employment and economic planning; a forum for mutual aid and organization. These labour exchanges are the federation of all workplace branches of all industries in a geographical area, "territorial basis of organization linkage brought all the workers from one area together and fomented working-class solidarity over and before corporate solidarity", as based on Rudolf Rocker's quotation. When all the producers were thus linked together by the bourse, its administration—consisting of a Workers' Council of directly-elected members—would be able to estimate the capacities and necessities of the region, could coordinate production, and, being in touch through other bourses with the industrial system as a whole, could arrange for the necessary transfer of materials and commodities, inward and outward.

Although conservatives fearmonger about “central planning,” democratic ecological planning ultimately supports more freedom, not less, for several reasons. First, it offers liberation from the reified “economic laws” of the capitalist system that shackle individuals in what Max Weber called an “iron cage.” Prices of goods would not be left to the “laws of supply and demand,” but would, instead, be abolished altogether along with the wage system. Instead, collectivized production will reflect social and political priorities, which are met through a direct industrial action in synergy with other affected Labour Exchanges. Ideally, as the transition moves forward, more products and services critical for meeting fundamental human needs would be freely distributed, according to the will of the citizens.

Second, this new government system would herald a substantial increase in free time. Planning and the reduction of labor time are the two decisive steps towards what Marx called “the kingdom of freedom.” A significant increase of free time is, in fact, a condition for the participation of working people in the democratic discussion and management of the economy and of society.

Last, democratic ecological planning represents a whole society’s exercise of its freedom to control the decisions that affect its destiny. If the democratic ideal would not grant political decision-making power to a small elite, why should the same principle not apply to economic decisions? Under capitalism, use-value—the worth of a product or service to well-being—exists only in the service of exchange-value, or value on the market. Thus, many products in contemporary society are socially useless or designed for rapid turnover (“planned obsolescence”). By contrast, in a democratic ecologically planned economy, use-value would be the only criteria for the production of goods and services, with far-reaching economic, social, and ecological consequences.

Planning would focus on large-scale economic decisions, not the small-scale ones that might affect local restaurants, groceries, small shops, or artisan enterprises. Importantly, such planning is consistent with workers’ self-management of their productive units. The decision, for example, to transform a plant from producing automobiles to producing buses and trams would be taken by society as a whole, but the internal organization and functioning of the enterprise would be democratically managed by its workers. There has been much discussion about the “centralized” or “decentralized” character of planning, but most important is democratic control at all levels—local, regional, national, continental, or international. For example, planetary ecological issues such as global warming must be dealt with on a global scale, and thereby require some form of global democratic planning. This nested, democratic decision-making is quite the opposite of what is usually described, often dismissively, as “central planning,” since decisions are not taken by any “center,” but democratically decided by the affected population at the appropriate scale.

Democratic and pluralist debates would occur at all levels. Through parties, platforms, or other political movements, varied propositions would be submitted to the people, and delegates would be selected accordingly. On the global scale, in order to minimize bureaucracy, a digital Internet-enabled direct democracy system is necessary through which people choose—at the local, national, and, later, global level—among major social and ecological options. Should public transportation be free? Should the owners of private cars pay special taxes to subsidize public transportation? Should solar energy be subsidized in order to compete with fossil energy? Should the work week be reduced to 30 hours, 25 hours, or less, with the attendant reduction of production?

Such democratic planning needs expert input, but its role is educational, to present informed views on alternative outcomes for consideration by popular decision-making processes. What guarantee is there that the people will make ecologically sound decisions? None. This new government wagers that democratic decisions will become increasingly reasoned and enlightened as culture changes and the grip of commodity fetishism is broken. One cannot imagine such a new society without the achievement, through struggle, self-education, and social experience, of a high level of socialist and ecological consciousness. In any case, are not the alternatives—the blind market or an ecological dictatorship of “experts”—much more dangerous?

This post-capitalist government is the logical transition from the current capitalist destructive progress to ecological anarcho-syndicalism, it is a historical process, a permanent revolutionary transformation of society, culture, and mindsets. Enacting this transition leads not only to a new mode of production and an egalitarian and democratic society, but also to an alternative mode of life, a novel stateless and eco-friendly civilization, beyond the reign of money, beyond consumption habits artificially produced by propaganda in the form corporate advertisements, and beyond the unlimited production of commodities that are useless and/or harmful to the environment. Such a transformative process depends on the active support of the vast majority of the population for an ecological anarcho-syndicalism program. The decisive factor in the development of socialist consciousness and ecological awareness is the collective experience of struggle, from local and partial confrontations to the radical change of global society as a whole.

[Diahon]

Let me be the first to buck the naysaying trend that utopia is not possible for us, that an ideal form of government cannot truly serve humanity, but will ultimately break down given time.

The ideal form of government would be one where the capacity for technological innovation can be distributed through as much of the populace as possible, which in turn necessitates not only free, universal, continuing education and access to healthcare, but a certain degree of supranational bureaucratic planning, cultural and political homogenization with an aim towards socioeconomic egalitarianism over potentially hierarchical and in any case fractious pluralist alternatives, urban agglomeration to simplify economic, ecological, and pedagogical challenges, and the willful, deliberate, and preemptive suppression of the human will to violence, in favor of markedly peaceful collective action, not only to head off civilizational and planetary disasters that can only but to ensure a constant pace of the abovementioned technological innovation.

The only way to bring all of this about is through a commitment to a long-term, thoroughgoing commitment not only to transhumanism but to autonomous artificial intelligence to aid human macrolevel decisionmaking.

[Duvniask]

Voting on everything would be hell.

You can always just not participate I suppose.

If that's your response to the problems you'd incur from this obsessions of yours with democratizing all aspects of life, you really need to get with the programme. Life is too short to be a series of Kafka-esque meetings where you have to vote on all the minutiae of social life. The anarchoid obsession with democracy is to such an extent that it is removed from any semblance of realism.

[HISPIDA]

You can always just not participate I suppose.

If that's your response to the problems you'd incur from this obsessions of yours with democratizing all aspects of life, you really need to get with the programme. Life is too short to be a series of Kafka-esque meetings where you have to vote on all the minutiae of social life. The anarchoid obsession with democracy is to such an extent that it is removed from any semblance of realism.

it's working pretty well in switzerland. then again, switzerland is a very small country.

[Kaczynskisatva]

...Their critique is based on the assumption of ceteris paribus, a Latin phrase meaning "other things equal or held constant,"

...they are failing to deliver the revolution necessary for actualizing the Kingdom of Freedoms as stipulated by Karl Marx.

This is just very pained writing.

You deliberately insert out-references to things which would get you seal clapping from anyone in your social club, get you knee-jerks from anyone outside of it, and for everyone, dilute the delivery of actual meanings with grandiose, flowery words.

I have radicalized more people than you ever will. I have done this, during years. I tried many different approaches to this. Here are a few lessons:

- Simple language, don't be pretentious
- Describe your idea, don't nominate it
- Be funny when you can, be compassionate when you can't

Simple method:

- First, criticize the problem
- Next, criticize other solutions to the problem
- Only once people are dissatisfied with the problem and known solutions, offer your solution

You're just throwing a bunch of stuff out here that it's not clear what they are, or why I or anyone may have a use for them.

Finally:

Throw your ideology in the trash.

This is not because there is a better ideology, it is because ideology is a cancer.

Here, I was asked the ideal form of government, so I proved, with brevity relative to the task, the ideal goal of government. I did not provide a plan for how that goal is to be executed. In order to do that, I would need to be told what material we are working with right now.

People are inherently not interested in a bunch of catechisms. People who like that sort of thing will get more fulfilled by organized religion, which offers basic rules for the user's life and not stipulations about a system they will be unlikely to personally achieve.

Goals, and execution plans, should always be singular and offered in context.

It also helps if they actually make sense. A goal of fossil fuel reduction (de-industrialization) is not necessarily going to be something that an involved voting bloc of proles are going to want. You stipulate no architecture of the cultural machine needed to get people to want this program - it's lacking in seriousness compared to, for example, the 1200 year-ish Catholic hegemony over the European principalities, which had a very elaborate culture machine to form the consensus of the governed.

You also provide no reasonable path as to how to get from any current form of government, to this. I would take armchair revolutionaries more seriously if they would spend more time discussing the anatomy of a revolution, and not the result that they want to get out of it. The last time Sovietism was tried (you are discussing, literally, forming Soviets) it turned out that the revolutionary method was adequate for destroying the previous state, but did not result in the creation of the system originally imagined by the ideologues. The revolutionary method of that era would not apply to this state of civilization, and a new method would have to be proposed to advance this, or any radical agenda.

You put all of this together so... loyal to form, as it were, I start to think that, with some guidance, you could write something actually useful. For now, you need to stop talking about Marx, Rudolf Rocker and whatever else, and constrain yourself to talking about things-in-themselves in naive, universal terms.

[Ispravlennaja Tsekovija]

...Their critique is based on the assumption of ceteris paribus, a Latin phrase meaning "other things equal or held constant,"

...they are failing to deliver the revolution necessary for actualizing the Kingdom of Freedoms as stipulated by Karl Marx.

This is just very pained writing.

You deliberately insert out-references to things which would get you seal clapping from anyone in your social club, get you knee-jerks from anyone outside of it, and for everyone, dilute the delivery of actual meanings with grandiose, flowery words.

I have radicalized more people than you ever will. I have done this, during years. I tried many different approaches to this. Here are a few lessons:

- Simple language, don't be pretentious
- Describe your idea, don't nominate it
- Be funny when you can, be compassionate when you can't

Simple method:

- First, criticize the problem
- Next, criticize other solutions to the problem
- Only once people are dissatisfied with the problem and known solutions, offer your solution

You're just throwing a bunch of stuff out here that it's not clear what they are, or why I or anyone may have a use for them.

Finally:

Throw your ideology in the trash.

This is not because there is a better ideology, it is because ideology is a cancer.

Here, I was asked the ideal form of government, so I proved, with brevity relative to the task, the ideal goal of government. I did not provide a plan for how that goal is to be executed. In order to do that, I would need to be told what material we are working with right now.

People are inherently not interested in a bunch of catechisms. People who like that sort of thing will get more fulfilled by organized religion, which offers basic rules for the user's life and not stipulations about a system they will be unlikely to personally achieve.

Goals, and execution plans, should always be singular and offered in context.

It also helps if they actually make sense. A goal of fossil fuel reduction (de-industrialization) is not necessarily going to be something that an involved voting bloc of proles are going to want. You stipulate no architecture of the cultural machine needed to get people to want this program - it's lacking in seriousness compared to, for example, the 1200 year-ish Catholic hegemony over the European principalities, which had a very elaborate culture machine to form the consensus of the governed.

You also provide no reasonable path as to how to get from any current form of government, to this. I would take armchair revolutionaries more seriously if they would spend more time discussing the anatomy of a revolution, and not the result that they want to get out of it. The last time Sovietism was tried (you are discussing, literally, forming Soviets) it turned out that the revolutionary method was adequate for destroying the previous state, but did not result in the creation of the system originally imagined by the ideologues. The revolutionary method of that era would not apply to this state of civilization, and a new method would have to be proposed to advance this, or any radical agenda.

You put all of this together so... loyal to form, as it were, I start to think that, with some guidance, you could write something actually useful. For now, you need to stop talking about Marx, Rudolf Rocker and whatever else, and constrain yourself to talking about things-in-themselves in naive, universal terms.

wow this is the most long-winded and pretentious form of tone policing i've seen to date and i've used this site for 4 years

[Vir Siriald]

theo-technocratic socialism with an assembly that has one third of its members appointed by the church and the other two thirds chosen by sortition to decide on the issues within its purview, with right to petition for a romantic partner guaranteed.

[Pasong Tirad]

You can always just not participate I suppose.

If that's your response to the problems you'd incur from this obsessions of yours with democratizing all aspects of life, you really need to get with the programme. Life is too short to be a series of Kafka-esque meetings where you have to vote on all the minutiae of social life. The anarchoid obsession with democracy is to such an extent that it is removed from any semblance of realism.

Lol what obsession it was a two-sentence throwaway response in an obscure internet forum who fucking cares calm down

[Torisakia]

One where the collective IQ of all those involved is higher than 0. Alas, such a thing only exists in fairytales.

[Ispravlennaja Tsekovija]

If that's your response to the problems you'd incur from this obsessions of yours with democratizing all aspects of life, you really need to get with the programme. Life is too short to be a series of Kafka-esque meetings where you have to vote on all the minutiae of social life. The anarchoid obsession with democracy is to such an extent that it is removed from any semblance of realism.

Lol what obsession it was a two-sentence throwaway response in an obscure internet forum who fucking cares calm down

gaslightibg.jpg

[Immortan Khan]

Mycenean style palace economy and monarchy.

[Bear Stearns]

Well, why not have a professional board of advisors, that know their stuff, and can objectively give information to the public and to politicians.

we can always make sure that those professional advisors are the most qualified and have the people's best interests at heart, because afterall, they're the experts and we need to trust the institutions in the Our Democracy at the sacred capitol

[The Second JELLIAN Republic]

Well, why not have a professional board of advisors, that know their stuff, and can objectively give information to the public and to politicians.

we can always make sure that those professional advisors are the most qualified and have the people's best interests at heart, because afterall, they're the experts and we need to trust the institutions in the Our Democracy at the sacred capitol

Well, the ideia of professionalism is that they would gain nothing from it, and they would only deal things that are entirely objective. Otherwise, you could not trust reality at all..
Just look at the CDC, of the FDA. They are authoritative sources of reliable information. They don’t make decisions, only recommendations, and anything they state is objective and can be proven or shown to be false, as much as you can say 2 + 2 = 4.

[Anarcha Feminist Gynarchy]

A federation of states, which agree to be so, in which each state is a different system, anarcho capitalism, stalinism, anarcho communism, absolute monarchism, and mandate that open borders are shared. Though this would be teneous because opposing ideologies some of which are very jingoist and aggressive, nazism, stalinism etc. So in conclusion there is no such thing as other people have stated for the reason, even with the above idea, it would still be hard to enforce at all

[Alkmaaria]

I for one believe that in a situation like this, federalism would be important to protect against tyranny.
I also am of the opinion that rehabilitation should largely replace the small-crime parts of the justice system we have today.
Also that whatever democratic process is used, it should have majority rule and minority rights.
I would also say that I believe the economy should be capitalism, but there should be a very strong goverment education system, strong small business subsidies, goverment funded r&d, and government intervention in any sector of the economy that reaches economic failure.
(Like utilities or healthcare, as the consumer can’t fight those monopolies).
I also believe in certain situations, ranked choice voting may be more democratic than winner take all voting.
So all in all, a strong but decentralized federal government, with more creative democratic processes, and with an economic model that gives everyone a very good start, but no guarantee of success.

I am relatively strongly of the opinion that criminals should simply be sent to prison. Criminals are, after all, criminals, and you can't trust them. You're basically giving them a slap on the wrist. This would also invariably lead to more government spending that could be used for more useful things. My sentiment is, they knew the penalty, and they commited the crime anyways. We shouldn't be treating them like drug addicts or something. They should be punished for commiting crimes.

[The Second JELLIAN Republic]

I for one believe that in a situation like this, federalism would be important to protect against tyranny.
I also am of the opinion that rehabilitation should largely replace the small-crime parts of the justice system we have today.
Also that whatever democratic process is used, it should have majority rule and minority rights.
I would also say that I believe the economy should be capitalism, but there should be a very strong goverment education system, strong small business subsidies, goverment funded r&d, and government intervention in any sector of the economy that reaches economic failure.
(Like utilities or healthcare, as the consumer can’t fight those monopolies).
I also believe in certain situations, ranked choice voting may be more democratic than winner take all voting.
So all in all, a strong but decentralized federal government, with more creative democratic processes, and with an economic model that gives everyone a very good start, but no guarantee of success.

I am relatively strongly of the opinion that criminals should simply be sent to prison. Criminals are, after all, criminals, and you can't trust them. You're basically giving them a slap on the wrist. This would also invariably lead to more government spending that could be used for more useful things. My sentiment is, they knew the penalty, and they commited the crime anyways. We shouldn't be treating them like drug addicts or something. They should be punished for commiting crimes.

Well most small crimes are drug related..

But also, if your starving and steal food.
That is the kind of crime that people will do over and over again. It’s not out of evilness, but wanting to survive. Rehabilitation cant fix things like those, but neither will prison. (Except that you get free food and bed in prison)

But to more of the core question.
Why do people do bad things.
If they are selfish or otherwise cold and calculating, you simply need to give them enough of a reason not to do something bad. But it’s rarely as simple as that. And most people are not sociopaths.

Can people not be redeemed ?
Are there some people in the world that are truly evil, and irredeemable ?
Does punishing people in the way we do, really help ?

[Marlenka]

My take:

The government shall not:

- Stick their c*cks up the asses of their citizens
- Find excuses to do the above
- Eat children

The government has to:

- Stick their c*cks inside the asses of external and internal threats to it's citizens
- Keep their c*cks out of the throats of civilians
- Not use their c*cks as a means of control over the people.