The ideal government.

[The Grene Knyght]

I guess, in all cases, insults are the recourse of someone who has run out of other arguments.

Do you hear yourself, or rather, read what you write in any of your posts?

Why are you bothering arguing with someone who clearly has you intellectually outclassed?

[Limonovshchina]

Do you hear yourself, or rather, read what you write in any of your posts?

Why are you bothering arguing with someone who clearly has you intellectually outclassed?

I know right? We're talking about a guy who is practically a real-life Megamind. I could not even imagine to be as intelligent as him. That's how limited I am.

[Nolo gap]

one which does not require a great deal of attention to it on the part of ordinary citizens to avoid getting into trouble with it.

[Unified Communist Councils]

The ideal government must be one which can most effectively change the lifestyle of its people. Human beings are flawed. Government, philosophy, religion, traditions and all other forces in the superstructure of civilization were all invented to help instrumentalize the best way for the species to survive.

This could be the most primal axiom behind all systems, governments not withstanding. This logically leads to what form of government is most effective in exacting that axiom. But Revolution is not a walk in the park, human rights would have to be contradicted amidst the chaotic transitional period. In the end, no one actually cares for ideological purity. Instead, we could value flexibility. An ability to reform its institutions, either by planned transition or reactionary response to pressure.

Our world government just needs the state's monopoly of power to exact that desired change in the base of society via feedback loop logic, whether it is autocratic or democratic matters little so long as the de-facto capacity for violence is vested within the central authority. That said, the authority must be an independent power structure from any other special interest groups, in-order to continue to transform its citizens free of subversion.

[Resilient Acceleration]

I might add that said ideal government system must be able to not only efficiently reform its institutions, but also its underlying power structure (since without it, the reforms will simply fail). To take a simple example, in an industrialized age, a country ruled by a financial and/or intellectual elite will fare far better than a country ruled by a class of warrior-nobility, slave-owning land aristocracy, or Confucian bureaucrats. Or, in a more modern example, a country where power is totally monopolized by worker's unions might be completely dunked in a future age of automation.

Well, from this observation, it seems that tying the general function, authority, to any particular function, like finance or land-owning, will cause this particular function of society to become it's raison d'etre, instead of society-in-itself.

You might want the authority to be strictly just that - the authority, divorced from all other particular spheres. Then, you would want it to be capable of delegating responsibility to intellectual elites, worker's unions or Confucian bureaucrats within their specific spheres of operation, instead of becoming them, so that they can re-delegate responsibilities to new functional classes as the need for them evolves, and strip older functional classes of responsibilities as they become obsolete.

That said, the authority must be an independent power structure from any other special interest groups, in-order to continue to transform its citizens free of subversion.

The problem is that power comes through organization. This so-called authority needs power to actually be able to delegate or strip organizations of their functions. This should explain why communism always fails when tried, since massive amounts of organized power is simply necessary to yeet off old institutions -churches, industrial elites, landowners- and this "power" often takes the form of a Party. But being an unchallenged authority with literally no way to evaluate or check on its decisions, the Party either falls into despotic genocidal insanity or despotic sclerotic kleptocratic bureaucratism. So TL;DR, I guess the existence of a "neutral authority" is by definition impossible.

I guess if we're to take history as a source of enlightenment, the best form of government would then be one where (1) power is distributed, (2) the incentive structure are the correct ones and (3) the true generators of wealth are rewarded and protected.

For (1), arguably the single largest reason the West advanced into the industrial stage while the rest of the world stagnated is that in the West, power was distributed among the clergy, merchants, nobles, and monarchy, with no one being able to completely dominate the rest. In that period, it is thus far harder for anyone to make truly disastrous decisions, or to confiscate other people's work. Money + the rule of law, a far more efficient system than the arbitrary decrees of medieval overlords, become the West's predominant method of resource allocation. Compare this to more centralized societies like imperial China, where the ruling authority can just "order" for things to be built or done, often resulting in unfixable accumulated damages that only becomes apparent after everyone involved is long dead.

A problem with this argument however is that concentration of power is also necessary to achieve economies of scale. It is hard or impossible to, say, defend against an invasion from an evil empire, perform the resource mobilization necessary to stave off climate change, or effectively deal with a pandemic - whether Covis or the Black Death. Decentralization prevents the worst, but it also prevents the best.

For (2), I guess incentives means "how can I get the most wealth and power". In ultra-religious societies or anarcho-communist communes, it's how best to hijack and steer mob rule through fanaticism. In democracies, it's how to manipulate the public as efficiently as possible regardless of actual outcomes. In capitalist societies, it's to both provide as much value as possible to the consumers and to reduce costs as much as possible - through innovation and/or through the exploitation of workers and the environment. In crony capitalism, it's bribing or currying favors with government officials to grant them special perks, state-sanctioned monopolies, or outright turning the state into consumer - meaning that pleasing the state, not the public, becomes the ultimate goal. In bureaucratic societies, it''s office politics and the creation of purposefully inefficient systems with the goal of concentrating as much power to a faction as possible. Incentives also deals with punishments. A problem with authoritarian bureaucratic societies is that there is literally no punishment whatsoever against failures, inefficiencies, or lack of foresight and innovation for the ruling bureaucrats who has monopolized all the power. An ideal government should be able to fix these incentive systems.

For (3), the benefits of a society based on the rule of law and protected rights become far more apparent. If you invent new technologies in industrial Britain, chances are patent and property laws will protect you from having your wealth and achievements be stolen by a more powerful, better-connected dude, whether a corrupt aristocrat or a corrupt party elite. This simply doesn't happen in more despotic countries. Labor relations can also be seen through the same lens. The military and economic powers of industrial societies is dependent on who can mobilize the largest number of people and of the best qualities. This means that the ruling authorities NEEDS to provide infrastructure, basic healthcare, and education to citizens, else they will be militarily and economically dunked by their neighbors. Compare this with slave or serf societies, and the results become obvious.

[Nationalist Northumbria]

You don't seem to understand the difference between apolitical, and pragmatism. If you asked me to explain why the Western system needs to be dismantled, I would not have a single thing to say about its ideals, or about competing ideals. I would read off the list of things it has done. It would be a statement of facts, like what you would hear at a murder trial. I am not interested in what it has meant to do - only in what it has done.

This political realism, as a revolutionary doctrine, is more viable than this thing you are doing, mostly in your head. It appeals to more people, and statements of incriminating facts do not conflict with anything. There are infinity possible theories for what the new State should be - there is only one proven theory for what the current State is.

Zarathustra - it has been some months since I read Nietzsche, and I don't take notes - had something on destroying existing systems without a proposed replacement.

[Unified Communist Councils]

The problem is that power comes through organization. This so-called authority needs power to actually be able to delegate or strip organizations of their functions. This should explain why communism always fails when tried, since massive amounts of organized power is simply necessary to yeet off old institutions -churches, industrial elites, landowners- and this "power" often takes the form of a Party. But being an unchallenged authority with literally no way to evaluate or check on its decisions, the Party either falls into despotic genocidal insanity or despotic sclerotic kleptocratic bureaucratism. So TL;DR, I guess the existence of a "neutral authority" is by definition impossible.

I guess if we're to take history as a source of enlightenment, the best form of government would then be one where (1) power is distributed, (2) the incentive structure are the correct ones and (3) the true generators of wealth are rewarded and protected.

For (1), arguably the single largest reason the West advanced into the industrial stage while the rest of the world stagnated is that in the West, power was distributed among the clergy, merchants, nobles, and monarchy, with no one being able to completely dominate the rest. In that period, it is thus far harder for anyone to make truly disastrous decisions, or to confiscate other people's work. Money + the rule of law, a far more efficient system than the arbitrary decrees of medieval overlords, become the West's predominant method of resource allocation. Compare this to more centralized societies like imperial China, where the ruling authority can just "order" for things to be built or done, often resulting in unfixable accumulated damages that only becomes apparent after everyone involved is long dead.

A problem with this argument however is that concentration of power is also necessary to achieve economies of scale. It is hard or impossible to, say, defend against an invasion from an evil empire, perform the resource mobilization necessary to stave off climate change, or effectively deal with a pandemic - whether Covis or the Black Death. Decentralization prevents the worst, but it also prevents the best.

For (2), I guess incentives means "how can I get the most wealth and power". In ultra-religious societies or anarcho-communist communes, it's how best to hijack and steer mob rule through fanaticism. In democracies, it's how to manipulate the public as efficiently as possible regardless of actual outcomes. In capitalist societies, it's to both provide as much value as possible to the consumers and to reduce costs as much as possible - through innovation and/or through the exploitation of workers and the environment. In crony capitalism, it's bribing or currying favors with government officials to grant them special perks, state-sanctioned monopolies, or outright turning the state into consumer - meaning that pleasing the state, not the public, becomes the ultimate goal. In bureaucratic societies, it''s office politics and the creation of purposefully inefficient systems with the goal of concentrating as much power to a faction as possible. Incentives also deals with punishments. A problem with authoritarian bureaucratic societies is that there is literally no punishment whatsoever against failures, inefficiencies, or lack of foresight and innovation for the ruling bureaucrats who has monopolized all the power. An ideal government should be able to fix these incentive systems.

For (3), the benefits of a society based on the rule of law and protected rights become far more apparent. If you invent new technologies in industrial Britain, chances are patent and property laws will protect you from having your wealth and achievements be stolen by a more powerful, better-connected dude, whether a corrupt aristocrat or a corrupt party elite. This simply doesn't happen in more despotic countries. Labor relations can also be seen through the same lens. The military and economic powers of industrial societies is dependent on who can mobilize the largest number of people and of the best qualities. This means that the ruling authorities NEEDS to provide infrastructure, basic healthcare, and education to citizens, else they will be militarily and economically dunked by their neighbors. Compare this with slave or serf societies, and the results become obvious.

Your argument for the ideal government is the endorsement of an elitist ogliarchy, subservient not necessarily for profit but of power. I think you have made an attempt to justify this belief on the premise that, compared to other methods of power concentration, this ogliarchy of special interest groups are an effective means of concentrating power and providing the most benefits to society in a law-abiding manner.

I think there is a simpler form of ideal government. The social contract between the ruled and the rulers is one of one-way consent. A government will be deemed permissible to preside over its citizens if the public in turn is content with how they are being ruled. There will always be contradictions in society, therefore the ideal government is one that is most effective at reconciling these contradictions.

Here, I would make the argument for the monopolization of power into an independent, semi-democratic technocratic authority over the meritocratic capitalist oligarchy as a more ideal way to govern an entire world.

1) There will always be contradictions in society on the topic of the distribution of power. In so far, it is currently the wealth generators that are enshrined as the most influential, therefore the rule of law exists to benefit them the most. There are scarce resources for all actors, and so the merit of those who can maximize output for the most minimal input is rewarded. In our hypothetical world, this rationale would hold but could it remain desirable to follow? Assuming for a second that we are talking about a United Earth Government and that all of the planet's resources have been tapped into, then there would be an abundance for all seven billion people. The capitalist oligarchies you propose as an ideal government, will inevitably face rebellion for their power structure is inherently autocratic— it depends on a myth of Upward Mobility and economic trickle-down at the top to raise the standards of those below. Inequity is engrained into this system, and in a world where all resources can be utilized, the importance of wealth generators will be made redundant. For the sake of the OP's argument, we must suppose that the Elite was unable to prevent this from transpiring. Now we can directly postulate that profit and money accumulation can be replaced.

Value creation is a more efficient means of allocating resources in a moneyless society, under our new imagined government, the value would be measured not in terms of commercial profitability but by communal satisfaction. It would need to be sustainable to avoid or recover from a climate catastrophe, as everyone on Earth is an actor within the biosphere at large, our impacts on the environment are an unignorable factor in a holistic approach to management. One of the foremost concerns of our modern world is the current capitalist inability to sacrifice some efficiency and productivity even if such pursuits are ultimately detrimental in the long term. Instead, a new form of governance along the lines of a technocratic, ecological bureaucracy would be best suited for devising the most responsible means for achieving the economies of scale necessary for optimizing value to society while minimizing the impact on the environment in turn. Power will be vested within problem-solvers, not the wealthy. Under your proposed system, there is an underlying presupposition that CEO/CFO and other executives of this so-called elite have earned their way into such positions through their own merit. This is not a natural state in human civilization, in-fact this liberal notion of an "aristocracy of the talented" is a relatively new concept. Despite whatever "positive morality" you can use to salad dress the wealthy meritocracy as an inherently good way to structure society, this doesn't happen naturally, most pre-industrial revolutionary societies would attest to this. It is in fact challenging to convince a population that if they're not talented enough by the systems' standards, that they are not deserving of the safety and luxury of the few at the top. This "mob" as you might put it, are each individual node of independent thinking each with a capacity to see through transparent bids of goodwill, made by those at the peak of the pyramid, to co-opt the public into participating and reinforcing a stratified society with no social equality and entitlement for those who do manage to succeed.

Our new ideal government could avoid a myriad of structural inequalities altogether by transcending meritocracy, where-in the goal is not to be the most successful within an arbitrary rat race but to abolish it altogether. Our government is driven to impose change upon its people in pursuit of a revolutionary goal that is of holistic, equitable management of the systematic distribution of opportunity. Scientists and engineers are most suitable for the actualization of this abstract goal, rather than financial elites who know to cleverly manipulate the rules of the game in a favorable way to their own privileges, a new model of holistic thinking coupled with empirical science could most efficiently serve the public. Compared to economic praxeology, theologies, or abstract philosophy, it has been science that has proven to be the most impartial method of realizing tangible results that benefit society as a whole. This is not an argument saying there is no importance in an economy, religion, or philosophies in general, but rather the empirical method is a more humanist way of structuring the hypothetical global government.

2) This is turn is to stipulate a revolution in lifestyle, imposed by the government through the rule of law and manipulation of media. The incentives are transformed, the most powerful is no longer in this "inspirational" class of entrepreneurs glorified by cohorts of geeks who detest the "average layman" who hasn't nearly accomplished as many feats as their enlightened great man heroes. Instead, power could be vested into impartial problem-solvers directly elected into such positions. The rule of law could protect fairness rather than wealth because nobody wants to be marginalized want things, we want to be treated in a just, ethical manner. The contradictions between Autocracy and Democracy can be minimized by concessions such as constitutional rights and empowering the public in the form of a referendum. The point is not just to have a central authority, but a power structure that can hold spheres of interests accountable, which in turn is provided legitimacy by the masses directly.

3) The competition between capitalist oligarchies trying to outdo one another is a sound argument in a fractured world but it's not universally desirable. A world government would have no such rivals to compete against, such a stage would only be concerned with justifying its own existence. On the grounds that this technocratic ecological bureaucracy is serving the common good and the planet-wide ecology, innovation organically occurs. While Our current monkey brains are indoctrinated into productivism, unlimited growth inspires the image of ever-rising trend lines, this just cannot go on forever nor is this liberal meritocracy even the best way to go about things. While meritocracy stipulates a theoretical universal right for all people to achieve their potential, it only gives access to that right to a minority already selected from the elite. There is nothing inherently wrong with incentivizing the development of peoples' skills and interests, what we should be really asking is why are we incentivizing it in the first place.

The suboptimalities with your system, along with many other posters' suggestions here that advocate for the same principle but in a different phrasing, is how these differences should justify an upper class formed around these attributes. The idea that some enlightened elite should decide for the majority with no accountability is profoundly undemocratic and unfair, they lead to anything but an equal playground. Unjust social structures can be done away with altogether through a responsible, holistic, democratic, and ecological stewardship of the resources. Meritocracy really only benefits a single generation of entitlement, the majority of Millenials and Gen-Zers are in fact faring worse off than their predecessors who worked amidst the golden age of the late 20th century. Subsequent generations will actually experience a decrease in living standards, as, under your proposed system, the markets would continue to commodify everything and decrease the opportunities for the unwealthy masses. These people are not just poor, but they would live in a society where money is required for everything, including basic needs and amenities. Oligarchies in fact breed conservativism, that the status quo is justified and so the elite must work to oppose any systematic change because the system exists to reproduce more of the elite. It's very much possible to imagine an ideal government that can produce more benefits to societies while avoiding the dystopian suboptimality of the meritocratic oligarchy that through subtle reforms, half-hearted concessions, and self-serving corporate propaganda media institutionalizes the pacification of demands for social change, the redistribution of wealth, direct action toward climate change, and deny the fact that structural factors or even simple luck can result in dramatic differences in outcome.

[Archinstinct]

Is one without corruption

[Imperial Old Mexico]

A Narco state.

[Mackiland]

Ideal for who?

[Mackiland]

Is one without corruption

I'd say the complete opposite. The one with LOTS of corruption! This kind of government is just ideal for those who rule.

[The Imperium man]

Some sad individuals who are endlessly simiping for communism as ideological terrorism. Why the hell those individuals completely ignored totalitarian dictators which is existing in 20th century. Your nostalgia is blind.

[Nationalist Northumbria]

Some sad individuals who are endlessly simiping for communism as ideological terrorism. Why the hell those individuals completely ignored totalitarian dictators which is existing in 20th century. Your nostalgia is blind.

... is that your answer to the question?

[The Imperium man]

Crap , I guess I'm in wrong forum. Sorry for my reckless behaviour.

[The New Rat Legion of Alberta]

Is one run by genetically engineered hyperintelligent rats

[Genivaria]

Bottom-up organization and Self-governance at every level of society.

While I like the idea of increasing self-governance to some forms of society, I don’t like literally everything governing itself independently because then in some way I would end up having to be apart of it, which I personally don’t have the patience for and would rather just not worry about it…

I don't see any implication that you would be forced to participate in such discussions, though the conclusions they reach may still effect you, which really is no different than the situation the vast majority of people are in now.

[Caleonia]

While I like the idea of increasing self-governance to some forms of society, I don’t like literally everything governing itself independently because then in some way I would end up having to be apart of it, which I personally don’t have the patience for and would rather just not worry about it…

I don't see any implication that you would be forced to participate in such discussions, though the conclusions they reach may still effect you, which really is no different than the situation the vast majority of people are in now.

Ironically as a white teenager male from Indiana in a middle-high class family, the biggest thing to have had an effect on us personally to my knowledge when it comes to policies as of recent are the darn stimulus stuff and the gas price increases. There could be more but they don’t have so much of a difference on us to where it’s completely noticeable.

Maybe higher taxes as of late but I personally don’t mind having to pay higher taxes if the tax money is actually being used properly.

[Genivaria]

I don't see any implication that you would be forced to participate in such discussions, though the conclusions they reach may still effect you, which really is no different than the situation the vast majority of people are in now.

Ironically as a white teenager male from Indiana in a middle-high class family, the biggest thing to have had an effect on us personally to my knowledge are the darn stimulus stuff and the gas price increases. There could be more but they don’t have so much of a difference on us to where it’s completely noticeable.

Many things that affect us aren't immediately noticeable.
For example, a recent interest of mine is urban planning and road design.
I've learned how American zoning laws that mandate that residential and business areas be separated heavily strains individual income as well as business revenue, it essentially forces everyone to have a personal vehicle or take public transit which often doesn't exist in many American cities.
That combined with zoning making all types of housing other than single family houses illegal drastically reduces housing supply and increases costs.

Our city designs are very, very good for people who make money selling cars and very bad for pretty much everyone else.

Would you not prefer it if the residents were the ones who had a say in such matters?

[Genivaria]

A good educational on the systemic effects of city design on the people (and also why I will never move back to Houston, the Katy Freeway is Satan)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxykI30 ... tJustBikes

[Duvniask]

But you can have autonomy without cooperation.

Right, I'm aware of that. Cooperation is not an automatic process and I'm not trying to pretend that it is. That's why autonomy isn't the only thing I mentioned, and why, again, I subordinated that to the need for it to exist within a cooperative society. You're stating that X can exist, and pretending it's an argument for why Y can't exist.

And communes not organically connected by a plan of production, which necessarily bonds them with each other (meaning a reduction in autonomy), will be forced to exchange their goods to each other, as it would be unrealistic to assume every single little community can exist on a subsistence basis (and even if it could, it would be a stupid retrograde step down from present society) - this opens the way for exploitation of surplusses, competition, etc. - all the vices of capitalism.

I don't oppose a planned economy, in fact I think democratic control of the economy necessitates it. You're acting like autonomy is an inviolable principle of mine and I'd be opposed to anything that infringes on in in the slightest degree. That's not true, it was only one facet of what I said an ideal government would be (and only insofar as it fits into the context of a cooperative society). I don't think there's necessarily a conflict between autonomy and planning.

Besides, you suggested decentralization to the extent that the "overarching state [was] practically invisible", to which I assume you mean any sort of centralized administration. Humbug, I say. Decisions are not always good just because they're made closest to those responsible for carrying them out.

I think centralised planning is a key step towards decentralised planning (as long as government and economy are run democratically).

Let's take note of what you said and what I replied to, because you splitting my post up in this way actually makes you miss the point, in addition to obscuring your own statements.

You can't, on the one had say you want every community to be autonomous to the point that "the overarching state", which I must again assume you use to mean central government, is "practically invisible", and then on the other hand walk back that very statement by saying you want a cooperative society. These points are in tension. You can tell me autonomy is not an inviolable principle and that it should only exist within the confines of "cooperative society" - but that is not reflected in how you talk of it. My point is that for you to have your cooperative society, it seems more or less impossible that "the overarching state" at the same be invisible and autonomy therefore be maximized.

Based on what I just said in the last post (the part you skipped over for some reason), it is strange that you seem to view decentralized planning as an end in itself rather than just a means to an end. Decision-making is not good just because it is close to the people it most immediately concerns - actions also have externalities that affect others. The interconnectedness of communities in the modern world makes this all the more true.

[Kaczynskisatva]

Zarathustra - it has been some months since I read Nietzsche, and I don't take notes - had something on destroying existing systems without a proposed replacement.

My list of "things to look up in books" grows faster than it can be resolved - if you want to hit me with that passage, that would be delightful.

[Kaczynskisatva]

Expanded brain: There should be, at least, an ideal government function. There may be common attributes to any output of that function, so there may be ideal properties of government. There may be attributes that are common to almost all outputs, or more frequent than others. So, there may be properties that are more likely to be ideal for a random (n) than for others, within the domain of possible (n)s.

The ideal government must be one which can most effectively change the lifestyle of its people. Human beings are flawed. Government, philosophy, religion, traditions and all other forces in the superstructure of civilization were all invented to help instrumentalize the best way for the species to survive.

This could be the most primal axiom behind all systems, governments not withstanding. This logically leads to what form of government is most effective in exacting that axiom. But Revolution is not a walk in the park, human rights would have to be contradicted amidst the chaotic transitional period. In the end, no one actually cares for ideological purity. Instead, we could value flexibility. An ability to reform its institutions, either by planned transition or reactionary response to pressure.

Our world government just needs the state's monopoly of power to exact that desired change in the base of society via feedback loop logic, whether it is autocratic or democratic matters little so long as the de-facto capacity for violence is vested within the central authority. That said, the authority must be an independent power structure from any other special interest groups, in-order to continue to transform its citizens free of subversion.

Well, we seem to be making some progress here on identifying ideal properties of government. Usually, when a thread gets too good, I check out of it for a while and think about it.

Here's an incomplete list of proposed ideal properties:

Personal properties:

- Competence: leadership which is highly intelligent and has extensive education and experience concerning all matters of State (for example, not the current US president, who is senile, or the last one, who was extremely inexperienced and ineffective)
- Loyalty: leadership which is committed to the general agenda of society, and not driven by private agendas (for example, without the banal agenda of accumulating personal wealth, building palaces, receiving billions in payments into shady "non-profit" dynasty-name foundations, or weird private agendas, such as the Moon Goddess cult issue which recently caused the resignation of a South Korean president)

Structural properties:

- Monopoly: a monopoly of violence and law, as per the definition of government
- Flexibility: The ability to update and rearrange itself, the population, culture and society, while conserving all ideal properties, with minimal chaos and violence
- Disentanglement: disentanglement from particular interests, not being beholden to given sectors of society (for example, corporations, as per the "campaign contributions / lobbying" mechanism, or military generals, as per the history of the Roman empire and modern, Sudan-tier equivalents)
- Quality control: transparency, or some other review method, to guarantee the competence and loyalty of highest-level officials

My question is not yet "how can any of these be achieved", as how to achieve disentanglement and quality control are complex and subsidiary problems. For now, a destination must be identified before a course can be charted. My questions, remain, essentially:

Are any of these not ideal properties of government, and if so, why not?
Are there additional ideal properties of government which can be identified and added to this list? If so, what are they?

[Caleonia]

Ironically as a white teenager male from Indiana in a middle-high class family, the biggest thing to have had an effect on us personally to my knowledge are the darn stimulus stuff and the gas price increases. There could be more but they don’t have so much of a difference on us to where it’s completely noticeable.

Many things that affect us aren't immediately noticeable.
For example, a recent interest of mine is urban planning and road design.
I've learned how American zoning laws that mandate that residential and business areas be separated heavily strains individual income as well as business revenue, it essentially forces everyone to have a personal vehicle or take public transit which often doesn't exist in many American cities.
That combined with zoning making all types of housing other than single family houses illegal drastically reduces housing supply and increases costs.

Our city designs are very, very good for people who make money selling cars and very bad for pretty much everyone else.

Would you not prefer it if the residents were the ones who had a say in such matters?

Oh yeah I forgot to mention that I don’t live in a completely urbanized area. I’m one of the few rural left-wingers that I really know of. I’m jealous of other countries, specifically Western Europe and Scandinavia with better urban design than us.

[Draconisisia]

There would be local councils of voting citizens consisting of 25–50 members (number of represented citizens should not exceed approximately 300 per council member). These local councils would be able to pass any law that affected only the local council. No higher council would be able to override the decisions of a lower council, only a council court would be able to challenge a local law on human rights grounds. The councils would be based on consensus, though majority votes would be allowed when issues cannot be agreed upon.

Each local council would send a delegate to a higher level council, until that council filled with 25–50 members. These second level councils would pass laws on matters that affected the 200,000 to 750,000 citizens that it represented. A delegate to a higher level council would be bound to communicate the views of their sending council, but would not be not bound to vote as the sending council might wish. Otherwise, Shalom points out that there would be no point in having nested councils, and everyone might as well vote on everything. A delegate would be recallable at any time by their sending council. Rotation of delegates would be mandatory, and delegates would be required to return to their sending councils frequently.

The second level council would send a delegate to a third level council, the third level council would send delegates to a fourth level and so on until all citizens were represented. Five levels with 50 people on every council would represent 312,500,000 voters (around the population of the United States). However, the actual number of people represented would be even higher, given that young children would not be voting. Thus, with a further sixth level nested council, the entire human population could be represented. This would not, however, be equatable to a global world state, but rather would involve the dissolution of all existing nation-states and their replacement with a worldwide confederal "coordinating body" made of delegates immediately recallable by the nested council below them.

Lower level councils would have the opportunity to hold referenda at any time to challenge the decisions of a higher level council. This would theoretically be an easy procedure, as when a threshold of lower level councils called for a referendum, one would then be held. Shalom points out that sending every issue to lower level councils would be a waste of time, as it would be equivalent to referendum democracy.

There would be staff employed to help manage council affairs. Their duties would perhaps include minute taking and researching issues for the council. These council staff would work in a balanced job complex defined by a participatory economy.

[Kaczynskisatva]

There would be local councils of voting citizens consisting of 25–50 members

(number of represented citizens should not exceed approximately 300 per council member). These local councils would be able to pass any law that affected only the local council. No higher council would be able to override the decisions of a lower council, only a council court would be able to challenge a local law on human rights grounds. The councils would be based on consensus, though majority votes would be allowed when issues cannot be agreed upon.

Each local council would send a delegate to a higher level council, until that council filled with 25–50 members. These second level councils would pass laws on matters that affected the 200,000 to 750,000 citizens that it represented. A delegate to a higher level council would be bound to communicate the views of their sending council, but would not be not bound to vote as the sending council might wish. Otherwise, Shalom points out that there would be no point in having nested councils, and everyone might as well vote on everything. A delegate would be recallable at any time by their sending council. Rotation of delegates would be mandatory, and delegates would be required to return to their sending councils frequently.

The second level council would send a delegate to a third level council, the third level council would send delegates to a fourth level and so on until all citizens were represented. Five levels with 50 people on every council would represent 312,500,000 voters (around the population of the United States). However, the actual number of people represented would be even higher, given that young children would not be voting. Thus, with a further sixth level nested council, the entire human population could be represented. This would not, however, be equatable to a global world state, but rather would involve the dissolution of all existing nation-states and their replacement with a worldwide confederal "coordinating body" made of delegates immediately recallable by the nested council below them.

Lower level councils would have the opportunity to hold referenda at any time to challenge the decisions of a higher level council. This would theoretically be an easy procedure, as when a threshold of lower level councils called for a referendum, one would then be held. Shalom points out that sending every issue to lower level councils would be a waste of time, as it would be equivalent to referendum democracy.

There would be staff employed to help manage council affairs. Their duties would perhaps include minute taking and researching issues for the council. These council staff would work in a balanced job complex defined by a participatory economy.

It never fails to amaze how, when you ask antifa-flag people what they believe in, they come out and say "basically everything the system already represents." You ask them, "hey - why do you want to smash the State" and they tell you "so we can install a representative democracy" with a straight face.

People vote for literal television actors to be president and they have no idea who their congressional representative is. Literally the best way to be president, is to just be an actor, and play the role as a president. People go nuts for this and they'll vote down the line for it, in effect, delegating to their chosen entertainer the right to pick everyone else, whoever - who cares.

This is not a serious proposal, anarchism is not a serious political agenda, and you are not a serious person.