Category: politics

Civil empowerment in Israel?

Where is the Israeli Ralph Nader?
http://www.nader.org/history/bollier_chapter_1.html

After Yom Kippur War in 1973, there were civil protest movements, which eventually caused Golda Meir to resign from her post as the Israeli Prime Minister. However, there were no organizations which lasted for long time and which addressed a spectrum of issues, like Nader’s creations.

The longest surviving organization of protesting citizens, “Peace Now”, dealt with Mideast political issues, rather than with consumer or civil issues.

[HIGHLY POLITICAL] Letting Arab citizens of Israel use KKL lands

Recently there was a ruling, which requires KKL (Keren Kayemet Le’israel) to let Arabs use its lands.

KKL was founded by Theodore Herzl to buy lands in the territory known then as Palestine and now as Israel, and settle Jews on those lands.

The ruling is due to the need to cleanse Israel from discriminatory laws.

I believe that in this case this ruling is misguided.

The reason is that KKL is based upon the principle of affirmative action (in Hebrew – “aflaia metakenet” which literally translates into “corrective discrimination”). Jews can be safe in the world only if there is at least one country in the world, in which Jews are clear majority and have full control of their destiny. Currently, this special country is Israel.

For example, Auschwitz could happen only because at the time there was no independent country with overwhelming Jewish majority, ready and willing to absorb all Jews which the Nazis wanted to get rid of.

The Arabs around Israel do not accept the situation in which there is a country with Jewish majority in the Mideast, between Arab countries. They try to change the situation by several means. One of the means is by having the Palestinians insist upon the Right of Return, whose ultimate consequence would be that Israel lose its Jewish overwhelming majority and cease to be the protector of the rights of Jews worldwide.

Another means is by judicial challenges, like the one which resulted in the ruling that KKL must allow Arabs to use its lands.

My practical suggestion:
Accept the anti-discriminatory rulings as just, but pass another law, which would stipulate that the affirmative action based discriminations continue unchanged until all the following happen:
1. All Arab and Muslim countries grant Jews equal rights – to be citizens, to buy lands, to build synagogues of unlimited size (currently forbidden by Islam), to worship their God.
2. There are no antisemite attacks against Jews anywhere in the world.

There is no chance that (1) or (2) will happen, so Israel will be able to practice affirmative action and fulfill its role as the protector of Jews worldwide.

Misfits and Revolutionaries in Utopia

When designing an Utopia, one needs to consider also how people who do not fit in are treated in the Utopia.

One way in which someone may fail to fit in is by being unsuccessful when trying to play by the Utopia’s rules.

In capitalistic regimes, unsuccessful people are poor, hungry, have poor health and bad (or nonexistent) housing. They then have a good reason to try to overthrow the present regime, in the belief that in a better regime they will have higher quality of life.

Another kind of unsuccessful people are those, who do not have the patience and long attention span to build their wealth slowly and on solid base. Such people indulge in various get-rich-quick schemes. They typically become real estate and insurance agents. They start the classical makework businesses. They do not consider the benefit to society when planning their business, only how it can funnel money into their pockets. Such people are behind business scams and Enrons.

A third kind of people are ones, who are better at organizing (i.e. influencing) people than in creating something. They become salespeople and politicians. They are the ones, who might believe that their personal success would come from organizing poor people to overthrow the present regime.

The real test of an Utopia is in how it deals with all those kinds of people and how can they find their opportunities in it without harming other people.

At any case, there will always be some people, who feel very dissatisfied with the Utopian regime, and who would try to overthrow it, or at least get it to change. Such people are necessary for the future evolution of the Utopia and for updating its workings according to the changed times. Those people would be good at pointing out abuses of the establishment and at getting it to change before it is overthrown.

Using welfare to restructure economy

Previously I wrote about the make-work problem of developed countries’ economics. In brief, the problem is that to produce the needs of a population, only small percentage (i.e. much less than 100%) needs to work. Thus, a system is needed to:

  1. Distribute the fruits of the producers’ labor among the entire population.
  2. Discourage people from being freeloaders incapable of doing productive work should this ever be necessary.
  3. Allow people to choose to work more (or make effort in another socially acceptable way) in exchange for more luxurious lifestyle.
  4. Develop and maintain excess capacity to work. This excess will allow the population to recover quickly from disasters.

There are some possible solutions:

  1. The conventional solution is to use advertising to develop artificial demand, and to get people to work to meet this artificial demand. I wrote elsewhere about some consequences of this solution.
  2. A better solution is to let people work in smaller and less efficient production units (factories, farms, or whatever) if they cannot pay for the products of bigger production units. On the other hand, people may find themselves working so much and get so tired that they cannot get ahead by studying.
  3. Even better system is to get people, who don’t have a job, to spend time learning something which will improve their productivity in the future.

The first two solutions are such that no special mechanisms are needed to cause cash to flow in a way which holds them together. This is why several economies implement them. The third solution needs special mechanisms to get goods to flow from the producers to the students, as there is no direct benefit to the producers from the fact that students spend time studying.

Now, I would like to propose a solution to this problem.

Welfare – both taxing of high incomes and handing out of money to people with low incomes – is now an established and accepted part of several economies. The welfare systems do a lot and get abused a lot.

My proposal is to replace existing income-based criteria for getting welfare by willingness to spend time studying something new.

Under this proposal, anyone, who did not (or was too lazy to) find a job, can get money for studying something. Welfare applicants would be evaluated to get a recommended course of study. However, they will then be free to study whatever they wish, at least some of their time.

Single mothers would be provided with services which look after their children while they study. People, who have learning disabilities, will be catered to by special methods of instruction, matched to their preferred studying style.

Just by studying, people would be able to get a minimum level if income. Certain subjects, which are deemed to be in demand, may carry higher pay tag. People, who study those subjects, will get more money while they study them.

What is wrong with developed countries' economic systems and how to fix it

Thought experiment

A thought experiment illustrating what is wrong with the economics
of today’s developed countries.

You built a space station which has room for one million inhabitants.
You are its BDFL (Benevolent Dictator For Life) and you are responsible
for initial allocation of property rights among the settlers coming
to live in your space station.

You already paid up all inventors for all patents being used by the
space station, and you are licensed to do whatever you want with all
relevant patents as long as you do it in the space station.

The space station is highly automated. Everything is recycled and
all energy sources are renewable. The space station is environmentally
friendly in that it does not pollute the space with any un-recyclable
trash.

Human labor is needed mostly to repair and improve machinery.

The employment needs of the space station are as follows.
– 1000 engineers and technicians to maintain the food and air production
machinery.
– 1000 engineers and technicians to support the energy collection,
distribution and disposal (in the form of cooling) systems.
– 10000 highly trained medical practitioners, who attend to diseases
of the general population.

– 10000 workers of all trades involved in housing construction and
maintenance.
– 1000 workers to maintain the cloth production facilities.

In other words, 23000 people are sufficient to support the basic needs
of 1,000,000 people.

The question now is what system is to be used to fairly “distribute the
income” among all inhabitants of the space station?

If the 1000 maintainers of the food and air production facilities “own”
the facilities and earn all profits from selling food and air, how will
other people (besides the other 22000 who have other jobs) pay for the
food and air?

The communist solution would make those 1000 maintainers slaves who work
to their best ability, and get only their share of food and air, like
everyone else in the space station.

If people don’t have to work for their food, air, housing, clothes
and medical attention – the spacestation will become full with
freeloaders. Those freeloaders would prefer to follow other interests
than contributing to the maintenance of the space station. So there
must be some relationship between work and benefits.

On the other hand, if there are no jobs for most of the population, how
can they prove that they are not freeloaders in spirit?

How the problem is being solved by today’s Earth

The way the developed countries of the Earth solve the above problem
is as follows.
1. More than 2.3% of the population are still needed to provide the
basic needs of the whole population.
2. Several jobs are essentially “make work”. Entertainment, fashion,
religion officials, advertising, competition of brands which are
essentially the same, tourism, spectator sports, laws which stand
in the way of utmost economic efficiency.
3. Taxing the income of producers and using some of the proceeds to
support non-producers.

Historically, any “excess prosperity” was disposed of by means of
wars. Nowadays, as wars went out of fashion, spectator sports substitute
for wars.

Disadvantages of today’s solution

When people must prove they can work by actually hold a job in order
to get life’s necessities and luxuries, jobs must be created even if
by artificial means.
When jobs need to be artificially created, demand for the work must
be pushed up artificially.
Demand is pushed up artificially when people are brainwashed into
buying goods and services which they don’t really need, and even going
into debt for this purpose.

When people are not in the mood of buying goods, economic depression
sets in and people lose jobs and are impoverished – even if there is
plenty of food and other life’s necessities.

Proposed solution: smarter make-work

We must recognize the fact that large part of the economic activity
in developed countries is make-work with no real value. We must also
free ourselves from the ideological constraints of Marxism, Communism,
and their capitalistic counterparts.

Once we have passed this intellectual hurdle, the following solution
presents itself (described in the context of the spacestation).

The 1000 engineers and technicians, needed to maintain the food and air
machines, need say 20 years to train for their jobs. Let’s pay them
good salaries also for the years they spend training. We’ll also allow
them to retire after one year of actual work. Let’s also train also
a group of replacement workers, who will pitch in if there is an
emergency which requires coordinated work of more than 1000 workers.

Then each one of 40000 inhabitants has something to do for 21 years
(20 years of training; half of them will have one year of actual work,
and the other half will be prepared for “reserve duty”).

We have similar arrangements for all other essential professions.
Given that people need extra skills to cope with emergencies, it
is possible for all of them to be as busy as they like to doing
(by learning or working) something which is of value to the society.

In short, everyone will be paid also for the time he/she spends
training for his/her job.

Industrious people will spend more time learning new skills, and they
will be paid better and be able to enjoy luxuries. Less energetic
people will spend less time learning, and they’ll be paid proportionally
less. But this is fine as this was by their choice.

ניסוי מחשבה

ניסוי מחשבה הממחיש מה דפוק במערכת הכלכלית של הארצות המפותחות של ימינו.
בנית תחנת חלל שיש בה מקום למיליון תושבים.
הינך הדנל”ח (דיקטטור נדיב לכל החיים) והינך אחראי להקצאה ההתחלתית של זכויות הקניין בין המתיישבים שבאים לחיות בתחנת החלל שלך.
כבר שילמת לכל הממציאים תמורת כל הפטנטים המשמשים בתחנת החלל, וקבלת רשיון לעשות מה שאתה רוצה בכל הפטנטים הרלבנטיים כל עוד אתה עושה זאת בתחנת החלל.
תחנת החלל הינה אוטומטית כמעט לחלוטין. כל דבר ממוחזר וכל מקורות האנרגיה הינם מתחדשים. תחנת החלל היא ידידותית לסביבה במובן הזה שהיא אינה מזהמת את החלל באשפה בלתי ניתנת למחזור.
עבודה אנושית דרושה בעיקר לתיקון ולשיפור המכונות.
צרכי התעסוקה של תחנת החלל הם כדלקמן.
  • 1000 מהנדסים וטכנאים כדי לתחזק את המכונות שמייצרות אוכל ואוויר.
  • 1000 מהנדסים וטכנאים לתמיכה במערכות לאיסוף, ביזור וסילוק (ע”י קירור) אנרגיה.
  • 10000 אנשי רפואה שעברו הכשרה מעמיקה, שמטפלים במחלות של האוכלוסיה הכללית.
  • 10000 עובדים בכל המקצועות הקשורים לבניית בתים ולתחזוקתם.
  • 1000 עובדים לתחזוקת המפעלים לייצור בדים.
במילים אחרות, 23000 אנשים מספיקים לתמיכה בצרכים הבסיסיים של 1,000,000 אנשים.
השאלה עכשיו היא באיזו שיטה להשתמש כדי “לחלק את ההכנסות” בצורה הוגנת בין כל תושבי תחנת החלל?
אם 1000 המתחזקים של המכונות לייצור אוכל ואוויר יהיו “הבעלים” שלהן וישתכרו את כל הרווחים ממכירת אוכל ואוויר, איך ישלמו אנשים אחרים (חוץ מה-22000 שיש להם עבודות אחרות) עבור האוכל והאוויר?
הפתרון הקומוניסטי יהיה להפוך את אותם 1000 המתחזקים לעבדים, שיעבדו כמיטב יכולתם, אבל יקבלו רק את חלקם באוכל ובאוויר, כמו כל אחד אחר בתחנת החלל.
אם אנשים אינם חייבים לעבוד תמורת האוכל, אוויר, מגורים, בגדים וטיפול רפואי – תחנת החלל תתמלא בנצלנים שחיים על חשבון אחרים. נצלנים אלה יעדיפו להעביר את זמנם בנושאי עניין אחרים מאשר תרומה לתחזוקת תחנת החלל. כך שחייב להיות קשר זה או אחר בין עבודה והטבות.
מצד שני, אם אין עבודה לרוב האוכלוסיה, איך יוכלו להוכיח שהם לא נצלנים בכוח.

איך נפתרת הבעיה בכדור הארץ של ימינו

הדרך שבה ארצות מפותחות פותרות את הבעיה הנ”ל היא כדלקמן.
  1. יותר מ-2.3% מהאוכלוסיה עדיין דרושים כדי לספק את הצרכים הבסיסיים של האוכלוסיה הכוללת.
  2. עבודות רבות הן בבסיסן “עבודה יזומה”. בידור, אופנה, כהני דת, פרסום, תחרות בין מותגים שהינם עקרונית זהים, תיירות, ענפי ספורט שיש להם קהל, חוקים שעומדים בניגוד ליעילות כלכלית מקסימלית.
  3. מיסוי ההכנסה של היצרנים ושימוש בחלק מההכנסות לתמיכה בלא-יצרנים.
היסטורית, כל “רווחה עודפת” סולקה ע”י מלחמות.כיום, מכיוון שמלחמות יצאו מהאופנה, ספורט שיש לו קהל ממלא את מקומן.

חסרונות של הפתרון של ימינו

כאשר אנשים חייבים להוכיח, שהם מסוגלים לעבוד, ע”י החזקה בג’וב כדי להנות מצרכי ומותרות חייהם, יש צורך בעבודה יזומה.
כשצריך עבודה יזומה, צריך גם לקדם באופן מלאכותי את הביקוש לתוצרי העבודה היזומה.
ביקוש מקודם באופן מלאכותי כאשר שוטפים את מוחותיהם של הבריות, כך שיקנו טובין ושרותים, שאינם באמת דרושים להם, ואפילו ייכנסו לחובות למטרה זו.
כאשר אנשים אינם במצב רוח של קניית טובין, הכלכלה נכנסת לשפל, ואנשים מאבדים ג’ובים ונהיים מרוששים – אפילו אם יש שפע של אוכל ומצרכים חיוניים אחרים.

פתרון מוצע: עבודה יזומה יותר חכמה

אנו צריכים להכיר בעובדה, שחלק גדול מהפעילות הכלכלית בארצות מפותחות הינו עבודה יזומה ללא ערך ממשי. אנו צריכים גם לשחרר את עצמנו מהכבלים האידיאולוגיים של מרקסיזם, קומוניזם והמקבילים הקפיטליסטיים שלהם.
ברגע שעברנו את המכשול האידיאולוגי הזה, הפתרון הבא מתבקש מאליו (מתואר בהקשר של תחנת החלל).1000 המהנדסים והטכנאים, הדרושים לתחזוקת מכונות האוכל והאוויר, צריכים נגיד 20 שנים להכשרתם לעבודה. הבה נשלם להם משכורות טובות גם עבור השנים שבהן הם מכשירים את עצמם לעבודה. כמו כן, נאפשר להם גם לצאת לגימלאות לאחר שנה אחת של עבודה בפועל. נכשיר גם קבוצה של עובדים מחליפים, שייכנסו לעובי הקורה אם יש מצב חרום שדורש עבודה מתואמת של יותר מ-1000 עובדים.
ואז יהיה לכל אחד מה-40000 תושבים מה לעשות במשך 21 שנים
(20 שנות הכשרה; חצי מהם יעבדו בפועל שנה אחת, והחצי השני יהיו במצב הכן ל”שרות מילואים”).
יש לנו סידורים דומים עבור כל ההתמחויות החיוניות.
נתון שאנשים זקוקים למיומנויות נוספות כדי להתמודד עם מצבי חרום, ניתן לארגן עניינים כך שכל אחד יהיה עסוק כמה שירצה ע”י עשיית (לימוד או עבודה) משהו שיש לו ערך לקהילה.
בקיצור, כל אחד יקבל תשלום גם עבור הזמן שהוא/היא משקיעים בהכשרה מקצועית.
אנשים חרוצים ישקיעו יותר זמן בלימוד מיומנויות חדשות, ויקבלו תשלום גבוה יותר ויוכלו להנות מחיי מותרות. אנשים עם פחות מרץ ישקיעו פחות זמן בלימודים, ויקבלו בהתאמה פחות כסף. אבל זה בסדר, כי זה בא מבחירתם החופשית.

Joining the blog world

I have been lurking others’ blogs for a while. Some of them were interesting and others were boring. My own intellectual pursuits have been solitary game for me.

One day I figured out that the world needs yet another design for Utopia, and decided to design and try to write a Science Fiction story, which describes my vision for Utopia.

At this time I realized that I too have blog level stuff, and the result is this blog.

כניסה לעולם הבלוגים

כבר זמן מה שאני קורא בלוגים של אנשים אחרים ומגיב להם. כמה מהם היו מעניינים ואחרים היו משעממים. העיסוקים האינטלקטואליים שלי היו עבורי משחק בודד.

יום אחד הגעתי למסקנה שהעולם צריך עוד תכנון לאוטופיה, והחלטתי לנסות לעצב ולכתוב סיפור מדע בדיוני, שיתאר את החזון האוטופי שלי.

בנקודה זו הבנתי, שיש גם לי חומר הראוי לבלוג, והתוצאה היא בלוג זה.