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| Thread: What’s happening in France |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 · «PREV |
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Salamandre
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Wog refugee
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posted April 20, 2025 06:02 PM |
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A honest and trustworthy system doesn't mean all individuals are so. It only means it offers equal opportunity, treatment and security to all individuals it pledged to take care of, granted by citizenship, regardless race, sex, age. AND political views also - which most often are just philosophical convictions, opinions, name them as you want.
So there is nothing wrong to keep closed doors. The system might be great, yet some people not.
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JollyJoker
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posted April 20, 2025 07:11 PM |
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Trouble is, the system depends on humans - on every level. The system can be as great as you want, but people are not, because people are not perfect and have a history. Every system can be abused - best by those with the most opportunities (perversely enough).
No system that depends on human beings will ever be failsafe.
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Salamandre
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Wog refugee
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posted April 20, 2025 08:24 PM |
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Not on every level, a system can be also objectively evaluated on the degree of effective progress it proposed, on an historical time line level. Comparing different societies system choices over let's say hundred years, then evaluate actual freedom on any level, economy situation, international ties quality, cultural blossom, instruction quality and so on. Yet sometimes it can be tricky and blurry, just think at Russia or China, it is not black and white neither. They have good if not better results in some areas.
It always strikes me when people say "fascism also was a consequence of letting majority decide", so they give the only example where it failed but then play deaf on the hundreds of examples where it indeed created an undisputed better cohesion and peace. Democracy is the least worse system, now the question is if it can survive after it reached its own limits, and in what form, will it become some hybrid mixture with more and more restrictive loans from others or what else?
Right now is clearly declining.
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JollyJoker
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posted April 20, 2025 10:32 PM |
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Okay, I admit I'm speechless. Great post! Too good for me to answer quick this evening. I just hope you don't think I think fascism was the result of letting majority decide.
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blizzard
Known Hero
Urban Legend
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posted April 20, 2025 10:54 PM |
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Yep. Multiple times.
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JollyJoker
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posted April 21, 2025 11:04 AM |
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There has never been any society ever (that we know of) that was equitable and fair with regard to ALL members of that society. I think, that should be clear without any discussion. The status quo has always been, economic and political dominance being in the hands of a minority. Apart from that there have been other differences - men and women, for example, women being treated like children, more or less, racial inequality (that is, skin color), there has been slavery, there has been a bias against homosexuality and so on.
It is important to note that as a society we come from extreme inequality. Economically, there have been a few fluctuations, but all in all capitalism has conquered the whole world and all societies are inequitable in this regard. That said, the first world at least managed to make sure that there is a limit on how poor the poorest can be. Add to this the other developments and we can safely say that in some regions of the world the 20th century has brought a lot of improvement.
Politically, though, democracy as a means to establish a "government" (which is itself limited in its power by the economic realities of who owns what and supposed to work for the good of all and everyone, for making society more equitable) has a couple of limitations in combination with the fact that society ISN'T equitable and there is a lot of inertia to keep it that way or make it even more INequitable.
In order to "bundle" interests, people band to groups, so-called parties, who can register for elections, and the people can vote for them. The parties nominate people for the important jobs which plays an important role, although the figureheads are always just the tip of the actual iceberg and work is much more complex with many more persons involved.
Now, people cannot vote for something they don't know about, so "parties" must ... advertise. In earlier times, before radio and TV, parties would have their own newspaper or magazine. But the actual "rules" haven't changed, only the number of the addressed. Rhetorics were known to the old Greeks and ever since then. When you want to be elected, when you want people to do your bidding, you need to convince them, bring them to your side - it's a competition.
And here we are at the heart of the problem:
The vast majority of the voters who happen to have only a small part of the riches, all want the same: if possible, IMPROVEMENT, peace (for them personally), health and private well-being, a good job, good perspectives for the children and so on. That, however, are all things that cannot be HANDED OUT; instead they must result of societal improvements and what EXACTLY has to be done for that is unclear most of the time. It is also quite unclear, whether parties are "honest" with what they promise or in their intentions.
It works like advertisement.
Things can get HORRIBLY wrong when things have been on the decline for some time, because no one wants that, so the pressure to improve the situation mounts. In politics you will always hear politicians saying things like, "If wwe want A, we need to do B". You will also hear them saying things like, "For A we have B to blame and if we can solve the B problem we get a vastly better C."
BASICALLY, that is all bollocks. There is only one problem, and that is the fact that while we count 8 billion people in the world, only a very small percentage of these control most of the riches and the power, and all vagaries come from them playing power and money games (like it has always been). PLUS, and that is the main thing, that these persons don't always act rational (which is further complicated by the fact that most of them are testosterone-guided).
A prime example is Saddam Hussein. The guy interviewing him the whole time when he was prisoner recounted Saddam explaining what made him attack Kuwait. Kuwaiti Secretary od State told Saddam the day would come when he'd personally screw every single wife of Saddam and afterwards let them serve in the cheapest brothel in Kuwait - and Saddam couldn't let that pass. (it was calculated Kuwaiti bait which worked.)
Anyway. The majority of people prefers keeping it simple and clear when it comes to analyzing problems. What we call "fascism" delivers that. The majority of people also likes an ability to DO something against a problem, as opposed to waiting it out or go slowly. So when there ARE times of decline, the majority of the people is prepared to:
a) believe SIMPLE explanations;
b) likes someone or something to blame because it
c) allows to focus on it and
d) ACT against it.
Note, that communism/socialism does so as well, but d) is a lot more difficult to do (and the result is as much in doubt).
Now. It's not democracy that reached its limits - it's capitalism. The reason is simple. Capitalism works only when there is "economical growth". Balance doesn't work due to the fact that at any given time a lot of loans are open which have to be repaid with interest. The loans as such can simply be repaid with new loans - but the interest must come from somewhere: If I owe you 100 €, you want to get back 100 € eventually plus 5 € interest. I could go and lend me 100 from someone else and repay you, but then I also need the 5 € interest. I HOPE to earn that with what I used the 100 for (and in reality I hope to earn more, so that I can actually repay something and now lend less than 100. But I MUST have the necessary growth to pay the interest off it.
Simply spoken.
The problem capitalism faces is that uncontrolled "economical growth" comes now with a hefty price in terms of consequences. Every new invention, every new boom may be in ways desastrous that can lead to an end-scenario. Climate change is only one of these things.
So what we have is a competition problem. Capitalism must switch from competitive to cooperative, but "cooperative" hasn't been a thing in male dominated (testosterone-based) societies - that is, since ancient times.
There ARE NO simple solutions anymore - but of course that's difficult to sell. Remember a) to d). Which is one reason why reason is on the defensive: The fascists (and "populists") tell a fine tale, promising to bring back simplicity, to cut through the Gordian Knot and so on, w in short, telling sweet lies - and the responsible side has no good answer. Because there is no good answer at this time.
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