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sociology:self-governance
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Self Governance: The Corruption of Society and Possible Solutions


Sociology of Companies

The model for stock corporations, is to make profit. Which is not inherently wrong. However, the model is flawed because personal involvement in the company is not a requirement to be a stockholder. With the lack of personal involvement, with the lack of being informed, it is too easy for investors to choose to invest only in corporations that produce the greatest return on investment. In other words, the lack of personal involvement leads to a disconnect between an individual's motivations, and the moral outcomes of the actions of the corporation. Therefore, corporations that obtain profit tend to be rewarded, regardless of the moral cost on society.

This, in turn, tends to lead to a working environment that promotes profit above morality. A positive feedback loop is created, where individuals increasingly disregard moral judgement in favor of profit.

Example at Google

Example at Nestle

A possible solution, would be that individuals can only invest where they also labor, for a number of hours per month. An example model for this is called a worker cooperative. In worker cooperatives, each shareholder is only allowed one vote. Different types of worker cooperatives could exist, where an individual's greater involvement in the company would afford more than one vote (perhaps as a function of hours worked, or money invested), while still upholding the principles of self governance.

Further reading:
https://platform.coop
The Real Structural Problem: The Self-Destruction of Capitalism, Randall Collins 20161207

Outlawing Campaign Contributions

There is no need for money to run a campaign, if campaigning is only allowed to happen by government hosted talks/debates. Campaign contributions have no place in government. Dark money has no place in government. Revolving door politics and conflicts of interest should be heavily audited.

Delegative Democracy (Liquid Democracy)

You could have individuals voting on every policy ever implemented, using voting software that would make it easier to fit voting into people's daily lives. However, not everyone is fit to vote on policy which they have little knowledge about. Not everyone has time to research policy to make an informed decision. That's why people elect representatives to do the voting for them. People are generally experts in one or few topics. The ideal would be that everyone would know everything there is to know, and would be able to vote for themselves. But chances are that many times we won't vote at all, because we have other things to do and can't keep up with the constant influx of policy that has to be voted on.

I think the closest we can get to an ideal, is for people to be able to individually select others to vote for them on whatever matters they believe the others to be experts on. For example, I want my friend Frank to vote on matters of foreign policy, because I know he likes to read about that stuff and he's a great guy and I like his value system. So I delegate my foreign policy voting to Frank. Foreign policy is a hobby for Frank. Frank delegates his foreign policy voting to someone he holds in high esteem on the matter. Every once in a while, Frank and I can override the delegation and vote for ourselves, if we disagree with our delegates.

Software exists to enable more direct involvement in government, where one can choose to vote individually, or vote on behalf of friends that confide in your decision, as a delegate. Current options include LiquidFeedback, GetOpinionated, and DemocracyOS (as of 2016).

Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy
https://medium.com/@DomSchiener/liquid-democracy-true-democracy-for-the-21st-century-7c66f5e53b6f#.6tjnthxg5

Sociology of Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy continually grows and spreads like a tumor. Something the founders of the democracy didn't anticipate? Where is the checks and balances for unending increases in spending and rule making, resulting in micro-management and lack of freedom? Maybe there should be another branch of government whose sole purpose is to decrease the size of government. Self importance is an affliction of not only government, but any doctrine.

Non-Violent Resistance

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/02/why-nonviolent-resistance-beats-violent-force-in-effecting-social-political-change

“…[the movement] needs to elicit loyalty shifts among security forces in particular, but also other elites. Security forces are important because they ultimately are the agents of repression, and their actions largely decide how violent the confrontation with — and reaction to — the nonviolent campaign is going to be in the end. But there are other security elites, economic and business elites, state media. There are lots of different pillars that support the status quo, and if they can be disrupted or coerced into noncooperation, then that’s a decisive factor.”

“…a surprisingly small proportion of the population guarantees a successful campaign: just 3.5 percent. That sounds like a really small number, but in absolute terms it’s really an impressive number of people. In the U.S., it would be around 11.5 million people today. Could you imagine if 11.5 million people — that’s about three times the size of the 2017 Women’s March — were doing something like mass noncooperation in a sustained way for nine to 18 months? Things would be totally different in this country.”

However, due to selective breeding for a spineless domestic population, the solution may be unattainable.

Related article: The Mainstream Worldview Is As Garbage As Mainstream Music And Movies, Caitlin Johnstone 20210407

Discussion

ginger, 2021/04/09 02:58
it's not just bureaucracy which grows and takes over. this happens with any business, profession, or occupation that is designed to solve problems. there is an inbuilt need to make sure existing problems are not eliminated, or that new problems continue to be identified.

when a person has invested years in learning skills to solve a particular problem, they want to focus on continuous treatments, not prevention or cures. this is true of the medical, education, law, military, construction, and manufacturing industries. this is why built-in obsolescence is ubiquitous.

the only industry that by nature must be continuous is regenerative agriculture as we will never stop needing food to avoid hunger. even power-generation and transportation can be automated and designed to be robust.

capitalism rewards waste. can we design socialism so that many professions and industries have a built-in incentive to minimise waste and excessive growth?

perhaps if social, economic, and physical problems that must be solved are not the sole purpose of a business or a profession/career. then each problem is treated as a temporary project and many people are brought in to work on it together for a short time, with the main goal being to prevent the problem from arising again. a bit like volunteer fire fighters and emergency rescue workers.
Marcos Reyes, 2021/04/24 17:58
Interesting insights. Sorry it took so long to show your message. My email notifications don't seem to be working.
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sociology/self-governance.txt · Last modified: 2023/12/21 04:33 by 127.0.0.1