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ThatDizzyChick -> RE: The Swedish socialist utopia (8/22/2017 6:24:04 PM)
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quote:
So what is the solution?
Honestly? There isn't one. Communism offers the best possible model, but it runs counter to those aforementioned human traits, and so will always fail unless there is some influence that will override those traits. So far, that has only been found in extreme religiosity, but even that is not a sure counter, as many communal religious bodies/communities have fallen prey to the greed of leaders or members, etc.
Of course, even when it does manage to overcome greed, etc., it opens the believers up to manipulation and exploitation, so the strength can also be a weakness.
Rather than there being a single solution, there are some basic principles that alleviate the deliterious effects of the greed, etc., however, many of them are more or less unworkable given the curent world population and degree of urbanization.
These principles are
1. The broader the interest in an enterprise, the less subject it is to being corrupted.
2. The more closely an enterprise is connected and interdependent with it's local community, the less likely it is to be corrupted. This principle, however, often runs counter to the first.
3. The more the focus of an enterprise is on profit for profit's sake, the more susceptible it is to corruption.
4. The more diffuse the authority in an enterprise is, the less susceptible it is to corruption.
As to what is required of us (meaning people in general)
A. A fundamental shift in societal mores is required, away from individualism and the glorification of material wealth towards a greater sense of community and a broader societal acceptance of the concept of "having enough".
B. A societal shift away from the worship of excess and consumption as a measure of personal worth, basically to value people for who and what they are rather than how much they have.
C. The abandonment of the concept of a "productive member of society", and the idea of a hierarchy of worth based on what one does for a living. Garbage men and janitors are looked down on, yet our entire society would implode without them. We could not get by without them, or truck drivers, longshoremen, farm workers, grocery store cashiers, etc., yet those jobs are generally seen as being the realm of failures, of people who can't do any better (just look at how many people try to attack me for my decision to remain a barmaid rather than get some corporate job).
As you can see, the "solution" involves such a deep and fundamental change in the basic assumptions of our whole societal model as to be effectively impossible.
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