Ripoff Britain, Fuel and oil prices

Sadly I think you're right. the 'Tyranny of the Majority' as it's known...


Maybe a type of hybrid system where the so called 'general will' of the people helps sway policy? My problem with our system is the pre election promises vs. the post election (in)action, that they're ever held accountable for the lies.
And that when they are supposedly held accountable by democracy in that they are not reelected, any new government acting on their pre election promises to reverse the hated moves of the previous shower of gits, is doing it too late; the damage is done. E.g The illegal Iraq attack and invasion. It's now too long ago that the act of removing all of the occupying forces is equally harmful - maybe more so than an invasion!

On that subject, we act too late. Saddam was a butcher 20 years ago!! but we attack in 2001, Similar with the ethnic clensing in Serbia, that HAD to happen before we get involved

What can we do?

Sadly I think you're right. the 'Tyranny of the Majority' as it's known...


Maybe a type of hybrid system where the so called 'general will' of the people helps sway policy? My problem with our system is the pre election promises vs. the post election (in)action, that they're ever held accountable for the lies.
And that when they are supposedly held accountable by democracy in that they are not reelected, any new government acting on their pre election promises to reverse the hated moves of the previous shower of gits, is doing it too late; the damage is done. E.g The illegal Iraq attack and invasion. It's now too long ago that the act of removing all of the occupying forces is equally harmful - maybe more so than an invasion!

On that subject, we act too late. Saddam was a butcher 20 years ago!! but we attack in 2001, Similar with the ethnic clensing in Serbia, that HAD to happen before we get involved

What can we do?

I don't wanna get into discussing new imperialism here sorry.

I will add this however. I was quite shocked when an old Jamaincan guy said he'd be happier with a proper monarchy than with the current situation, but as time goes by I have more sympathy than I'd originally thought about the idea.

You both touched a very interesting point there: you need an informed electorate for any direct system to work properly. This doesn't exist at present in this country, but it's not difficult to see it gradually developing over a few decades with a gradual plan of trasfering decision-making to people. It must be an amazing state of mind though when every single person is aware that his decisions are critical to his fate and thus feels literally *obliged* to get informed, as e.g. we now feels obliged to get informed about the XM if we ever want to repair it. At present we naturally use politicians as scape goats, and reasonably so as *they* make the decisions. We only have street-demostrations and a 4-year election to express what we think.

The point is that it is none's interest to go to such a direction, except of the people's interest. Politicians would loose a great deal of their power; businesses would be terribly unhappy to allow us e.g. leave a bit earlier on Fridays to allocate some time for getting informed on the issues, when they'd like us to work till...death if it was up to them.

In ancient Athens, citizens spent some time managing their fates -note that the "Parliament" only *prepared* laws, these then went to the people's assembly for discussion and eventual voting/rejecting *from the citizens*-. A huge difference with today's "Democracy" where the parliament prepares AND votes the bills lying on a blank-sheet authority given to them by a single voting once every 4 years. Obviosuly ridiculous as a system, from the management point of view. Would you ever think it thinkable for a CEO to be given the OK once every 4 years and then do whatever he pleased over all issues?! Discussing and voting in classical Athens happened in once-a-month or once-a-fortnight sessions. There was a fully developed processes, where anybody could choose to stand up and address his fellow-citizens, and they used standard clay-pots topeed up with water, with a bottom-hole that made for an exact 6-minute time alocated to each citizen till it was emptied. On the process of course, those who were most able in speaking became the usual speakers for each party and everybody expected them to speak the mind of their party.

Don't imagine these people were anything like today's "politicians" or "politics obsessed" people, they were just lay people like anybody, they were shop-owners, builders, landlords, engineers, small agriculturers, accountants...Just that they had a say on their things and spent some time to practice it, as you'd spend some time visiting your granny once per month or so....In fact they would think you are jocking if you told them that nowdays the only say we have is one vote every 4 years. Many people advocate that such a system is impossible without a high-level of education: that's not true, all you need to know is your work sector's issues (and you already know them better than anybody else), your local area issues (same), broader issues, e.g. "education" (same, which parent doesn't know his children's daily doings?). Pl

An interesting detail to show the mindset of the people of that period: why does "idiot" means...idiot, even in the English language?

"Idiot" originally means "private" in Greek, nothing to do with "stupidity". However back at these times, people started calling "idiots" (="privates") some fellow citizens who didnt' care about the common issues and getting involved -because it was seen as avoiding the risk and effort of deciding, thus handing responsibility to the rest-. Thus "private" came to mean "silly, moron".....This system needs near-100% participation, if not it will crumble down in time, when things go wrong, by those same people who didnt' care to be involved in decisions ("hell, I didn't have a say in this, not my doing" etc etc.).

What about the "ostracism" feature? People had the right to vote and expel "out of the country" any leader they thought there's reason to. It was not used often, but happened a few times..."That's your one-way ticket to Siberia Mr Bliar, bye-bye...." (Details here ).

Ancient Athenians did it with iron-age technology; when I think of the possibilities of today, it makes me cry.....Till the advent of the Net it probably couldn't happen -ancient Athenian citizens were just about 30,000 people-. But now....Plus, so many configurations are possible; e.g. if a bill is to be passed that concerns, say, the accounting profession, you could have a limited electorate including, say, all the accountants, combined with some wheighted-effect vote from a sample of purposedly selected citizens, or specialist commitees, or..., or... ,or....The potential configurations are endless!

One thing is for sure: our political systems today look ridiculously rudimentary, "non-existing" is a better word, from aaaany management-science perspective....It is annoying to see e.g. business-life being so scrupulesly organised, with so much brain and money thrown in taking care of it -perfectly normal-, and our...main-life management being so neglected, literally like a piece just totally missing. The bones of ancient Athenians are certainly shacking in their graves for us calling these "Democracies"...

cheers
George

This post has been edited by jorgy9 on April 06, 2008 09:15 pm

that's the 'motivator' behind the action! We only feel motivators at the heat of the moment.

I tend to refer to this a lot when I'm in one of my 'discussions' in the pub etc but the trouble with this is that AFAIK it was only the social elite who were allowed to voice their views this way in Athens. In fact I think these sessions were called 'Forums' and this is where we get the word today for internet chatrooms!

!! I think I learn more from you George than I do from anything else!!

Haha! yes they might be! but like you're saying about haw words change over time, the meaning of Democracy changes... perhaps it's much more of a 'token democracy' now: I mean sure, we are all 'entitled' but the actual thing we're entitled to is not fit to be named democracy. It's a shame. But also It's not the same as ancient Athens because that probably cannot work in today's culture. If the govenment *prepared* laws and the law was then opened to the whole UK voting internet system, the potential for a whole bunch of helpful but 'not fun' laws could become defunkt. If there was a law on the old favourate; speed limits or a satilite controlled limit for urban areas, there is potential for voters to overthrow new law intended to protect pedestrians in urban areas that, even if it's a kind of 'spoil sport' sort of thing making us drive at e.g 30 mph or less automatically in town, but that it could be lost due to the tyranny of the masses exercising their right to vote. ( in case you're wondering, I am fairly leftish but do beleive in certain forced constraints such as speed limits and the review of their implementation)

So we might not like the idea of the morally positive proposal to force motorists to stay under 30 in town and we might majority vote against it and the knock on effect might be that urban road deaths never improve because a law that could have changed that was quashed by direct democracy.

that's interesting, do you recall what he said was the reason he preferred it?

Anyway enjoy our freedom while it lasts coz one day it might be a whole lot less than we like

Graeme

You probably refer to what usually comes up when the discussion turns to the question of "were ancient Greeks good guys or bad guys finally??": the fact that they used slaves -prisoners of war- which of course were not given any political rights whatsoever -women neither-. Otherwise, rights were -factually- equal for the poorest or richer Athenian citizen. There were even monetary assistances to help the poorest make it to the day -a poor agriculturer would have to travel 20km among fields to reach the center of Athens-. The situation you have in mind was the truth for Rome, where there has never been real Democracy -although there has been a "democratic period" in the history. In Rome the "populus" (populace) was happy with, how do u say, "bread and spectacle" ?, u know, lions eating slaves, gladiators stabbing themselves to death, etc. In Athens people were, by today's measures, *fanatics* of talking and participating in the governance of common issues. Remember where "idiot" comes from??? Their cultural entertainment was theater (similar to going to "the movies" I guess); and sports; nothing similar to the "Coloseum" existed in any Greek-populated place, even when they were conquered by the Romans -it just didn't "sell"-...Romans, after some time, adopted theatre from Greeks, but still it was an upper-class thing...Theatre performances were free in Greece -they were considered very important for the education of people- and again there were benefits in place for the poorer to be able to make it etc...Note that "free" means in this case "sponsored" by the rich: they were obliged to sponsor the programmed annual festivals; each one sponsored one director+play, and if that play won the prize for "best play", it was very honorific for the sponsor also; so in fact the rich were actively *seeking* to sponsor somebody...

"Forum" is the Latin for "Agora", the Market. You are right that this is were lots of discussion happened but not that it was the equivalent of the decision-day discussions I previosuly described -the name for that was "He-kle-seah of the people", which later gave "Iglesia" in Spanish, "Egglise" in French, etc Romance languages, but by then it had taken the meaning of "Church" -and that's what it also means today in Greek-. "He-kle-seah" means the "Calling" (of the people). You can still see it today in Athens, it's in the area of the Akropolis and the ancient Agora, but I suspect many tourists miss it because it's at the top of a separate hill. It's just a sort of a field with 2 marble steps in front, where the speaker would stand and have his time of speaking. Thrilling when you stand there, watching it, emtpy, and leave you imagination run...you can almost hear Perikles trying to convince Athenians that it would be the right choice to go to war with Sparta, and then the intense noise from the audience....I don't know if Romans had anything equivalent, but Forum has the meaning we associate it with because this is were the "socialising" happened, equivalent to the pub-practice in the UK. Same for the Agora. Men would go to do the home-shopping and also "socialise" in the meanwhile. You have to remember that life back then mainly happenned during natural daylight, and probably at the few places open after sunset u'd only find drunkards or sailors....

Back to the point, there's nothing that shows that there should be any connection between the governance system they developed and the slavery institution. Slavery was commonplace anywhere around that time, but only Athenians developed democracy for themselves -mind you, other people also enslaved members of their own nation just as normal-. Athenians all had full time jobs anyway -slaves were used in the state-owned mines and as servants at homes-. So when this comes up again in one of your discussions, you could answer: "When in the 90s Europeans copied the philosophy of "Just-in-Time", and "Lean Manufacturing" etc from Japan, did this mean Europeans also had to start eating...sushi and pray to..Budda? (Well, not really, Japanese are Sintoist).

You see my point...Today women have full rights and slavery has been abolished 200 years ago in thecivilised world, so no need for any of those elements. Just keep the good ones!

Re. the possible miss-chiefs with various non-pleasant laws...It is a matter of people being educated...not "school education"...but education that comes from PROPERLY diggesting the fact that their vote would REALLY have the implication they boast about in the pub...I'm sure that half of people that now say "speed limits are silly" would in fact vote FOR at such a situation, when they realised that they really *are* jointly responsible for the death of the neighbours girl from someone that was speeding...The other half would continue wanting to speed in neighbourhoods -there are always brainless people-. However, still with that example we keep on seeing things statically; do u realise that, most importantly, such a governance change would mean that there would be a proper deep discussion about "what is safe?", "what is speeding?" "what it not speeding?" "can anyone speed more than others for some reason?", and normally the product of this discussion would be much righter than the choice we now get "speed limits, or not sped limits". But it is a process that wil ltake decades to be developed. But finally it will make people realise where the REAL problems are, and where POLITICIANS sell us non-existing problems as real problems. E.g. if it turns out that we *really* have to retire at 85 if not the pension systems are f***ed, and that there's not any alternative, then most of the people will have to bitterly admit that this is a universal thuth and they cannot escape from it. And then I cannot believe that anybody will vote "opportunistically". At the moment we are in a state were we cannot distinguish lies from truths, because we don't trust politicians, and as a side-result, we indulge in a child-like attitude, were "it's all politicians fault". This will dissapear if we took management of "our home" directly in our hands.

Some good effects will immediately appear though: many strategies and plans that are obviously not in the interest of people but are trying to align business interests with people's interests resulting in proposals whose use looks at least obscure, would just not pass. Ie. I doubt if after HONEST public consultation people would have voted to invade Irak -or perhaps maybe yes, if it turned out it is really good for the country at the long term-. I doubt people would want MORE commercial centres built -perhaps they'd prefer parks or I don't know what-. I doubt it would take soooooo long to develop the railway further and enlarge motorways -likely resources from other unwanted investments would be diverted to all that-.

You will ask me, yeah, but how do we know the Parliament would even consider and initiate such a discussion so to produce various possible bills to be voted/rejected by us? Hehe this is were it becomes "satanically" intriguing...in Athens, also the MPs were common citizens!!!!! Not professionals! What does this mean: they were elected at the local level, and sent to serve for 1 year only. Each individual could not serve more than twice in his life. Rotation-Rotation-Rotation is the word . You see the problem again with modern 4-year governance and the Party-system that *goes together* ? All sorts of unwanted relations can thrive in the current setup, and we have ended up with this awful nexus where all of them MPs are in deep shit, serving businesses and their own personal carreer interests....Just bad from as management practice view, just bad. Anyway, what's this with today's management of Departments? WHICH managerial theory supports that an organisation of 1,000ss can be effectively managed by a random guy/girl, who most times has not at all any cognitive relatioship with the Department's area, and whose core body of knowledge is mainly how to be succesfull of the political chessboard???

Re. the Jamaican guy and monarchy...this is a common belief held in places where disorder reigns. Same as the army believes the have to interevene when things are getting out of hand. Ask the Iraqis what they prefer: the current state or Sadam's state....I know the answer... From a political science perspective, there's the "Wise Leader" or "Enlightened King" theory... Rubbish...Always originating from the rich elites that naturally believe they have the God-given duty to rule everybody else. Plato is a famous theoretical proponent...from a rich family himself...Rubbish. For every 95 "Rubbish Leaders" you get 5 that are so-and-so...they *are*, that is until they soon get murdered by their cousin who belongs to the other 95...that's History....

Anyway, enough with history. The internet is out there for whoever wants. I'll just say that to finish, in all honesty: it is a coincidence, but studying the way things were done in classical Athens cannot but be compared to the feeling you get when you get deeper in the understanding -and use- of the Citroen hydropneumatic system-. It just makes you stop and think: "why the hell don't we all just do it that way"? I'd say the greatest contibution that Athenian's doings can have on us today is not so much what they've applied -because they also did errors- but, above all, the sheer knowledge that the *unthinkable* (for us) has actually *been* applied from some other people, at some previous time. The change in one's cognitive state that comes from this realisation just cannot be expressed by any monetary value.

Phewww that must be the longer message I ve ever written ,anywhere!

cheers
George

ps.
This mention of the rich and their sponsoring of the theatre festivals in ancient greece reminded me an article I read the other day in a newspaper where some Noble-prize winner economist or something proposed that there should be a "war tax" to fund each war, that way citizens would think twice before eg allowing their President Bush to invade Irak and cause a $3 trillion debt for the USA. Well, guess, in ancient Athens it was even better: not only that, but it was only the rich that paid for war! Especially all the navy, was totally funded by the rich -they paid all cost for building and maintaining the boats etc-. In fact it was also perceived as an obligation and a honor. But for the few times that they started...murmuring "I have not enough, it' been a bad year for business etc etc", there was a law saying that, any other citizen, could claim that *he* could manage to armour the boats with the rich guy's assets -a property exchange-. That way, the rich were really carefull when claiming they were "a bit skint"....Clever or what?!

This post has been edited by jorgy9 on April 09, 2008 02:54 am