[RickW]

I suppose it would be appropriate to begin with what our notions of "society" are.

[Individualist]

RickW wrote:

I suppose it would be appropriate to begin with what our notions of "society" are.

I'm assuming the above is an invitation to share our respective notions in this area. Let me start by saying that I don't subscribe to Margaret Thatcher's idea that "there is no such thing as society". I don't even believe she ever really subscribed to it on a literal level. It was hyperbole on her part.

I see society as a container. It provides a structure to guide, enable (and sometimes constrain) our interactions with one another, and to develop infrastructure and provide services that we could not generate on an individual or family basis. Its most important function, in my view, is to provide a framework for protection of our individual human rights.

The tricky thing about the notion of a "social contract" is that a true contract requires explicit offer and acceptance. In contrast, a person born in a society becomes a party to that contract without any real choice being made, other than to leave the society when he is of sufficient age. But while I really wouldn't consider it a true "contract", it is an understanding that is shared between the citizens of that society.

Speaking on a more personal level, what I want out of society is a mechanism to keep the control freaks, busybodies and know-it-alls out of my face. My own personal test for the health of a society is how accepting we are of each other's lifestyle choices, regardless of whether or not we agree with them. For example, downtown-dwelling urbanites should be able to respect the fact that some people want to live in single-family homes in the suburbs and drive cars, while suburban motorists should respect the presence of bicycle lanes and pedestrian-friendly zones in the downtown core.

You have the right to do things that piss me off, as long as you're not actually harming me. The reverse is true as well.

There are too many people who think they have all the answers and know how everyone else should live their lives. In truth though, such people are simply narcissists who wish to force their own lifestyle preferences on others, using the power of the state as a bludgeon. Many of these people seem to end up as Toronto Star columnists for some reason.

I'm wary of the word "vision" when it's used by a politician. What he inevitably means by that word is "my plan for your life". A society should be a vehicle to help us acheive our ambitions and personal visions, not to serve the vanity of a so-called "leader".

[Brent Swain]

We elect them to represent us , not control us. Most politicians have problems grasping the concept. We have to continually repeat it to them, in hopes it will eventually sink in.

[Brent Swain]

RickW wrote:

Quote:

One of the most difficult decisions to make in society is what and how much to produce

I have to disagree with you on this one. The individual makes those choices in a democracy every day. But putting it the way you do smacks of centralized planning, however greater or lesser. I may be a so-called "socialist" but I do not believe in centralized planning. It never works over time.

At the beginning of the Soviet Union, there was struggle between the idea of local co-operatives, or central control. Unfortunatel, central control won , and it proved unsustainable in the long run.Makes one wonder how the local co-operative option would have worked out.It would have been far less bureaucratic, and more responsive to local needs, lack of which was the main reason for their collapse.

[Individualist]

Brent Swain wrote:

RickW wrote:

Quote:

One of the most difficult decisions to make in society is what and how much to produce

I have to disagree with you on this one. The individual makes those choices in a democracy every day. But putting it the way you do smacks of centralized planning, however greater or lesser. I may be a so-called "socialist" but I do not believe in centralized planning. It never works over time.

At the beginning of the Soviet Union, there was struggle between the idea of local co-operatives, or central control. Unfortunatel, central control won , and it proved unsustainable in the long run.Makes one wonder how the local co-operative option would have worked out.It would have been far less bureaucratic, and more responsive to local needs, lack of which was the main reason for their collapse.

What if the problem with "big business" and "big government" came down to the adjective, and not the nouns? The bigger an institution gets, the more disconnected an individual voter/citizen/employee/shareholder/client/stakeholder gets. And perhaps that's the reason why the theoretically sound arguments for mergers, acquisitions, amalgamations and consolidations (i.e. "economies of scale") so often fail to materialize in the real world.

Perhaps those gains due to elimination of redundancy are offset by losses due more to human nature and motivation than to purely economic factors. Increased complexity is likely also a factor.

I suppose bigger isn't always better.

[Brent Swain]

Russian farms were handed down from generation to generation, along with the knowledge of how to farm, and a very strong personal stake in it's success.
Communism put bureaucrats in charge, who had no personal knowledge of how to farm, nor personal stake in it's success. Those who knew how to farm no longer had any personal stake in it's success. So the bureaucrats made stupid orders and drank vodka , while the farmers simply sat around drinking Vodka. By the time the Soviet Union collapsed , over 90% of the food was being produced in backyard gardens. The backyard gardens were producing ten times as much food per acre as soviet collectives.
In the west, the dynamics of corporate farms are the same, with home owned farms and gardens producing ten times as much food per acre as corporate farms, with far less environmental damage, while corporate bureaucrats dither and make stupid decisions for workers ,who have no personal stake in what gets done or produced.
This also makes the length of time the land is viable for farming ,finite.
They brag about how many cattle they are raising in feed lots, without mentioning how many acres it takes to grow the feed, and the cost of fuel and wages shipping the feed to the feedlots, and removing the manure.
In traditional farming,the cows find their own feed , and put the manure where it belongs, at no cost to the farmer, in fuel nor wages. Too simple, logical and personally unexploitable for the bureaucratic mind to grasp, or admit to.

Compared to how long traditional farming has been evolving , the corporate industrial farm is a flash in the pan, hair brained experiment, who's days are numbered. I believe a similar corporate experiment preceded the fall of the Roman empire.