Mister Warwick has an impressive knowledge of the political philosophy
of the Twentieth Century, which does not apply to a natural economy. In
fact, I have quite a detailed idea of how control of what is produced
can be retained by the consumer in actuality. This is discussed in my
book <http://dematerialism.net/POS.html%20> and in other papers, all
of which are linked to my website. It involves an emergy budget, which
might as well be administered by an emergy credit card, a term I heard
mentioned first by Jay Hanson. Control of how production is carried on
is retained by the workers who "own" the production facilities where
they exercise their skills. Political control is retained by the
members of each community as discussed in the section on fractal
government at http://www.dematerialism.net/wiki.htm#_Toc170283591
<http://www.dematerialism.net/wiki.htm#_Toc170283591> . This is
pure democracy in the sense of Aristotle even though Aristotle didn't
like it. I believe this system defeats Pareto's scenario.


I would appreciate it if Mr Warwick would read the wiki at least.
Perhaps he will give us some references to papers by himself rather than
ask us to read works by authors that might legitimately furnish the
material for a one semester course. One could read all of my papers in
that time.


That said, I agree that I need to spend more time writing about how
democracy might work in an economy where people can live even though
they are on furlough from work that must not be done, for one example,
or are incapable of doing anything that needs to be done, for another.
Please don't imagine that it has not occurred to me that dematerialism
might fail. If it fails, it will not be for the same reasons as the
systems that preceded it. It supersedes Marxism. In any case,
capitalism certainly doesn't work. We had better try something new.



Tom Wayburn, Houston, Texas
http://dematerialism.net/ <http://dematerialism.net/>
http://dematerialism.blogspot.com/ <http://dematerialism.blogspot.com/>
http://dematerialism.wikispaces.com/
<http://dematerialism.wikispaces.com/>



P.S. I envision these ideas being implemented in intentional
communities first. Actually, I see no reason why a natural economy
embedded in a market economy wouldn't work. I am an engineer. My
ideas work.


--- In energyresources@yahoogroups.com, h w <misterwarwick@...> wrote:
>
> Tom Wayburn wrote in his dematerialism doc on War Socialism:
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> The third feature of a Natural Economy to which War Socialism will be
forced to conform is democratic command and control of the production of
goods and the delivery of services. Nowadays, accountability within
industry is divided among the stockholders, the boards of directors, the
managers, and the workers. This is a scenario ripe for abuse as each
group has its own agenda, which may be at odds with the best interests
of the consumer, the neighbors of the facility, the suppliers of raw
materials and other needs of the enterprise.
> -----------------------------------------------------------
>
> What your idea in conceiving " democratic command and control of the
production of goods and the delivery of services" is EXACTLY Leninist
NEP theory. Before anyone starts yapping about "Commonism" allow me to
elaborate.
>
> This is the theory:
>
> Republican Democracy and modern Parliamentary systems were developed
by the bourgeoisie in order to protect and project their power as a
class. However, the universalism of democratic theory extends beyond
class and race and gender, as we all know. Much of the 19th/early 20th
century was basically a rear-guard action by the bourgeoisie/business
class, where, having wrested power from the mythology of monarchy,
sought to keep the power for itself as a ruling class elite.
>
> Marx saw this very clearly, and as an after thought developed what
little theory of government he could, i.e., the dictatorship of the
proletariat, which was an unfortunate formulation, as it directly fed
into fascists like Pareto. and Pareto is someone we need to heed: his
idea of the cycling of the elites was prophetic. On a theoretical level,
the soviet system was very deomcratic, as long as you were on board with
the Communist Party. This is very similar to the present American
system, where there are two parties but they are both corporate
capitalist parties, and as long as you're on board with corporate
capitalism, you will have a political voice.
>
> Now, when Mr Wayburn suggests "democratic command and control of the
production of goods and the delivery of services", there is no
discussion of who this "democracy" serves. Mr Wayburn's theory of
government is platonic and abstract - much like the scientist he is, his
notions are formal and devoid of actuality.
>
> My own theory of government is this: government exists to protect and
project the interests of the ruling class. If the ruling class is
proletarian, then you get a deformed worker's state, a la, CCCP. If the
ruling class is corporate and neoliberal, then you get the USA / UK /
CDN / FRA etc. Now, combine that with Pareto's insight, and it becomes
very clear that the "democratic command and control" system will very
quickly pick winners and losers due to irreducible human turbulence.
>
> Now, this is where it gets interesting:
>
> Wayburn is actually correct, as is Hanson, insofar as Hanson
understands the workings of society. Wayburn's abstraction permits him
to develop "democratic command and control" which is not incompatible
with War Socialism, insofar as the War Socialist state is able to
maintain its ideological hegemony through the manipulation of mediated
information sources. (chomsky, Innis, Smythe, etc.) It's not control
that is necessary: it is self-censorship that is vastly more effective.
(read: foucault's Power and Knowledge, Gramsci's Prison Diaries) And the
best form of self censorship is the demand for expression! (see
documentaries by Adam Curtis) By requiring individuality, the individual
becomes a node in a giant dataset. Not dehumanised at all - just a
contributing part of the machine, so that media is not a control
mechanism, but a contested field (viz Stuart Hall). Even if the media is
reduced to a medium (papyrus and ink... I don't care) the bet way to
> control it is to let it be "free" and thus self limiting, while
corporate interests collect profit on the ink and paper...
>
> Hence: War Socialism and Dematerialism rest on the same set of
assumptions, just from inverse directions and directives. War Socialism
fails as the energy system that feeds the War Machine falters and the
ideological hegemonic media structures dissapate around it, and
Dematerialism fails as Pareto's cycling of the elites infects the
"democratic command and control system".
>
> Good night and good luck.
>
> HW
>



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