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I think this thread is an admirable example of sustained discussion and am enjoying it a good deal. I'm going to try and answer Leap's points as he gives them above (though I do feel that most of them have been answered before in this thread, I haven't had a good crack at them yet) - it's going to take me a while though, so I hope this isn't out of date by the time I actually post it.
I'm going to start by saying, Leap, that I disagree with you about the basis of your argument (as I see it). It seems to me that you have constructed this vision of a social order (for want of a better term) principally because you just really really resent having to pay tax, and a lot of the rest of your ideas are designed to cope with the results of no taxation. I don't resent paying tax (or rather, I don't resent paying tax when I'm actually earning - I'm a student at the moment), and I don't regard it as theft. I think that, by participating in a representative democracy, I am electing a representative body which governs in the name and room of the people, and I regard taxation as a legitimate part of that government. I believe taxation benefits society as a whole by allowing everyone access to basic services which allow them to live above a subsistence level, and hopefully provide a platform for people to improve their lives themselves if they so wish.
Or at least, that's what I believe representative government and taxation should and can do: I think the system as it exists at the moment is in considerable need of reform.
On to the points you asked us to answer.
People are by nature multifaceted generalists rather than rather two-dimensional specialists; being human is made up of a variety of things.
Yes, I broadly agree, though I don't think 'multifacted' and 'two-dimensional' are adding anything; most people are probably generalists rather than specialists, though I don't know about all...
People are personal critters – we are ‘suited’ to being personally involved in our lives rather than hand aspects of them over to others; when things are too much for us to do alone, it is better to share than delegate (keeping our hand in, maintaining personal involvement in what is an intimate part of being human).
I think you mean here that people function best with a support network within which they make their own decisions, yes? Again that seems reasonable.
People are social critters – although we often need time on our own, as a rule we welcome living in groups (feeling distressed and lonely when not part of them).
And yes, this fits in with the above.
People are generally capable of seeing to their needs and directing their own lives without interference – this is what marks the difference between an adult and a child; in nature, it is the role of the parent to bring the child up to be self-reliant (not to be confused with selfish or asocial). We are not drones by nature (in need of managing – except, that is, when we are children or kept artificially in a child-like/ish state).
Perhaps generally, but not always (we've been through umpteen examples of people who aren't actually capable of this, for many possible reasons). I don't quite see what the idea of what is natural for us has to do with this - I'm not even sure that there's any agreement about what is or is not natural for humans, especially as it's rare to find humans living outside social groups which provide them with support through networks of mutual reliance. Also, a person may be self-reliant in one respect - such as financially - but not in another - such as emotionally.
I do not believe that taxation makes people into drones or removes their ability to make choices, by the way - I can agree that aspects of big government do remove choice (especially privatisation, in all areas, and shoddy local government), but then that's one of the things I agree needs reforming - not by removing government, mind you.
People are generally born equal; there are differences but none are actually born with a suitability to serve, nor rule (this comes as an amalgam of our personal and generally capable aspects).
Unfortunately people are born into unequal social situations, which have a tendency to have an immense effect on their subsequent lives - probably more so than their innate abilities, in fct. Unless you propose to redistribute wealth (which I am guessing would be against your principles) that'll still be the case in your system and will, to a large extent, prevent egalitarian ideals having any effect on reality.
People are historically aware – we gain a sense of perspective and a sense of the ongoing and orderly nature of life / the world, the bigger picture into which we fit and by which we are contextualised.
I don't know, you know, how historically aware people are (and I don't mean 'children these days don't know anything about William the Conqueror' etc). I actually think that many people have a pretty limited view of their overall context (and I'd include myself as one of them). Certainly the actions of many people can be very short-sighted in terms of the effect it has on their wider environment - look at all the NIMBYism in Surrey; the campaign for a new runway at Heathrow; the News of the World campaign against paedophiles. I think that's true on a personal level as well - chucking away your beer bottle in the wood could easily mean a shrew or something gets caught inside it and dies. I certainly don't think that people automatically think about what will benefit their neighbours, decscendants, &c. when they make decisions.
And in addition to all that, I'd like to add that it seems to me that you have selected and presented your ideas of what makes us human (or perhaps what gives us dignity?), but that they are not necessarily the only attributes we have, or even that they are the primary ones which make us human. I might add 'rational', for example. I'd probably also stress 'sociable', 'social' and 'organised'. Not every human will exhibit all these characteristics to the same degree. I think it's also a bit dangerous to extrapolate personal attributes like dignity and modesty to cover society as a whole, or humanity as a whole. Basically, you're arguing from your conceptions here; and you have to recognise that other people aren't necessarily going to agree with them; and also, and perhaps more importantly, that they don't necessarily only lead to the conclusions you've drawn from them.
As personal, social, capable, historically aware, multifaceted beings we are demeaned by a loss of the centrality of the personal, the social, our capability (or natural path to such), our historical awareness and our many facets. Thus our dignity is intimately tied into the centrality of the concepts of privacy (to replace it with supervision is an attack on our ‘personal’ and ‘capable’ nature), self-restraint (to replace it with enforcement is an attack on our ‘capable’ nature and a denial of our ability to learn for ourselves from history and taker personal charge of our own lives), egalitarianism (to replace it with elitism would be to deny that we are all, as rule, equally capable of being human and equally endowed with our human nature (and so all of this argument should be respected, and the modest, the common, should be sought whilst the exceptional, the superiority granting, is denied)) and vigilance (to replace it with sleepiness denies the value of our human nature to live private and personal, egalitarianistically expressed, self-restraint guided, lives – vigilance teaches that we should as a rule neither deny these things to others nor to ourselves).
As I've said, I think dignity is a much more personal attribute that you're making it here. However. I agree that our privacy is invaded, but I would say by surveillance rather than supervision. I think that what you mean by supervision is 'governmental prescription', is that about right? I don't necessarily agree that this invades privacy; depends what you mean by privacy though, I suppose. If you mean 'the right to do and say exactly what I want to, when and where I want to', then it does, and I don't think that's a bad thing. If you mean 'invades my house and tells me what to think', I certainly don't think governmental prescription does that. I don't believe self-restraint has been replaced by enforcement: one restrains oneself from breaking the laws established in the Parliament and the courts, and those who are not self-restrained in this respect face prosecution. What's enforced about that? I agree that egalitarianism is desirable, but I believe it is best fostered through a redistributive system which, as I said above, should ideally give everyone the means to live above a subsistence level. I believe the current system is elitist in many respects, but that these are principally caused by the entrenchment of moneyed privilege, which perpetuates inequality, and that this is much more pernicious than game-shows and celebrity magazines. I do not agree that the current system promotes sleepiness in the place of vigilance, but I'm not quite sure what you want people to do with this vigilance - do you mean local vigilantism, or vigilance against government acting against the interests of the commons? If the former, I think it a recipe for discrimination and violence; if the latter, I think that local actions and protests against developments, etc., show that this sort of vigilance is still around, and that the chief problem is with privatisation, business interest and corruption in local government - which could and should be reformed.
A tax funded, institutionalised, big govt, welfare statist, system denies the above by replacing the personal/private/self-determined/egalitarian/intimate way of living that we are suited to with an impersonal/managerial/supervisory/elitist/interactive way of living by means of giving control to an institutionalised elite that formalises social processes, stripping away personal judgement/responsibility and a generally egalitarian view of life in favour of a hierarchical mechanisation of life.
As you may have gathered by now, I don't really agree with this. I think that centralisation of government, when done in a way which permits a degree of local autonomy, should be a force to create and maintain a reasonable standard of provision across the entire country. The welfare state should allow people to get on with and improve their lives by ensuring that everyone has access to health, housing, education, utilities, and food according to their needs. Taxation which supports this and which is implemented through a representative Parliament is not theft, but rather a mechanism which allows everyone to contribute to this society according to his or her means, as well as to benefit from it. Taxation also supports infrastructure and administration at a local and national level.
In my opinion this system allows a great deal more personal agency and promotes greater flexibility in terms of social processes because it does not prescribe (or rather, ideally does not prescribe) what those social processes should be; nor, ideally, does one have to conform to an idea of what is appropriate in order to contribute to society, or even to be thought of as a member of society. Whereas your model only permits those who subscribe to the 'correct' ideas of dignity and modesty - or those who have sufficient wealth to do as they please - to be members of and contribute to society, and therefore perpetuates hierarchy, is ideologically and socially prescriptive, and would lower the standard of living for the majority of the population. |
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