Democratic Socialism;A Philosophy That Saves the World?

[Bill Wiltrack]

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Well put.

Lately I've be focusing upon the tremendous impact the digital revolution is having upon jobs.

It's often called the Third Industrial Revolution and supposedly we are right in the middle of it.

I'm well into the back nine of my life.

I look at my past and I realize how much pleasure I have derived from the perception I am doing something or bettering my life or helping society from whatever work I was doing at the time. The relationships and the structure work gave me to understandable values and to a meter of right & wrong.


I look to the future and I see machines doing work that individuals used to do.


Men against machines - that is part of the shit-storm that I see out upon the water that is about to hit our shoreline.


Beyond Work is the name of a book by visionary Jeremy Rifkin.


Mankind will continue, certainly in a more mechanical way.


The emptiness I feel since I've retired I'm sure is tied to the fact that I no longer have the value systems and work related markers that I had developed and had grown used to throughout my life.


This crossing. This transition.



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[Skip]

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Lately I've be focusing upon the tremendous impact the digital revolution is having upon jobs.

It's often called the Third Industrial Revolution and supposedly we are right in the middle of it.

Myself, I'm fascinated by the advances in robotics, particularly prosthetics, but also space exploration, hazardous clean-up and rescue work.... (Military, not so much. I hate wasting an opportunity for violent, aggressive guys to blow themselves up along with their target. Think how many of those we'll be stuck with, if they fob off all the flak meant for them onto robots!)

I look at my past and I realize how much pleasure I have derived from the perception I am doing something or bettering my life or helping society from whatever work I was doing at the time. The relationships and the structure work gave me to understandable values and to a meter of right & wrong.

We were probably trained to that attitude, before we had any defences, because the bosses needed peons with a strong, reliable work-ethic, back then; it's easer to deal with self-motivated labour (A carrot saved is a carrot invested, they used to say in the cigar clubs). Now they don't need so many drones, they're throwing truckloads of young peons into wars and prisons, gangs and addiction.

I look to the future and I see machines doing work that individuals used to do.

There could be an up-side to such a future. If the machines took all the drudgery out of production, people could be liberated for community service; for teaching, caring, healing and nurturing work; for arts and healthy leisure-time pursuits; for enhancing their environment; for solving problem at home and elsewhere....
... but not until they got a handle on reproduction. (If you put up a dirty video, I'm outa here.)

Men against machines - that is part of the shit-storm that I see out upon the water that is about to hit our shoreline.

On the other hand, chances are, the complexity-gap will cause the whole economic and commercial network to collapse. Machines require reliable, continuous energy, and capitalists are not real big on planning beyond the next quarter. Third- and emerging- world labour is still far lower R&D and maintenance cost than sophisticated machinery - for now.

Beyond Work is the name of a book by visionary Jeremy Rifkin.

He's that sweet, wide-eyed innocent, isn't he - at (and in) an age when nobody has a right to optimism? Can't help liking him, though.

Mankind will continue, certainly in a more mechanical way.

I wouldn't count on it.

The emptiness I feel since I've retired I'm sure is tied to the fact that I no longer have the value systems and work related markers that I had developed and had grown used to throughout my life.

Maybe so. I guess I found retirement easy, since it was a long, slow transition from employment through free-lance to business start-up to bankruptcy and recovery and various independent enterprises. I've never not been busy, anxious or engaged. In retirement, there are still opportunities to contribute to the world and seek personal fulfilment.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Reasonably uncorrupted democracy, functioning at a humanish 70% efficiency, will inevitably lead to socialism, as more and more of the people demand that their requirements be met. That's why the electoral systems of capitalist countries are regularly hijacked by the economic elite and turned to serve their own purposes. Then they're free to do business as they please, which invariably leads to a major depression and/or political breakdown and/or war, which requires government response, so the elite relinquish the reins to competent administrators, who then institute reform and regulation so the state can function again. Until they grow confident enough to hijack it again.

Last week the Conservative Party won a strong majority in Parliament with 36% of the votes cast. In other words 64% of the votes cast want something else. And presumably the 30% of people who could have voted by did not were either disaffected by politics or have no one who represents their views, would further reduce the mandatory claim of the 36%.

Even so the Tories now act as if they have a mandate of the people.

Fact is that there is no party now in the UK that is remotely socialist. Those that want socialist policy reflexively vote Labour - a party that has long abandoned any pretention of left-wing policy.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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Two great, well thought-out replys. I thank you both for engaging with me in this thread.

To the second post, what has happened politically in the UK has already happened in the USA.


For this reason I, for the first time in my life, feel like, What is the sense of even voting?


We still have the right to open & free elections but the bottom line is the politicians with the deepest pockets will win their respective campaigns.

Social or economic positions are really secondary to the overall move to create confusion, misuse statistics, and attack your opponent in a personal way.

The system here, in America, is fucked. It seems broken in a way that I have never seen before.





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Other places, too. Canada and the UK have right-wing governments that are so rabidly against conservation, they've defunded environmental efforts and betrayed every principle of conservatism. Their first order of business is to enable capital; their second is to pacify the population. To that end, every legislative session passes yet another 'emergency' policing procedure; demolishes yet another layer of legal protection for the citizen.

I think this cycle has to run its course before anything positive can be accomplished.

The worst of the insults heaped on our injuries is that so many of the young are led to believe that the political and social trends we set in motion back in the 60's are still in motion; whereas, in reality, they've been derailed these past tow decades.

oh, and I have new bumper-sticker:

DISAPPOINT A PESSIMIST