Month: April 2024

Unlike my predecessor Plato, I do not have unlimited access to papyrus scrolls so I have to be careful not to get too carried away with my rant.  So let me wrap this up.  I have highlighted some of the steps I think will be needed to make Goodenoughia a better place to live than 2024 America.  And not being a political scientist, I’m probably ignoring vast areas of reform that must be considered; the currency, laws on business monopoly, government revenue, the government’s role in research and development of new technologies, and on and on and on.

But what I see as the most crucial change in the way the country is run lies in the “mission statement.”  What we need to be striving for is to focus on increasing and strengthening the “middle class.”  That is where thought and research need to be expended.  What are the things that the states and the federal government can do to grow the proportion of the population that is functional and thriving.  I’m not sure what the philosophy of this is called.  It’s not exactly Utilitarianism.  Let’s make up a name and call it photogian middle-classicalism.  I want to see as many families as possible raising their kids successfully and enjoying a good life.

Maybe we’ll find that the efficiency we’ve gained by automation is anathema to this middle-class maximization.  If we can prove that’s the case then I’d propose abandoning it, even prohibiting it.  Maybe a world where we employed wagons and horses would be better than one with automobiles.  Who knows?  But we should find out.  That’s what political science should be about, increasing human happiness.  Because currently we have the opposite.  The whole adult and adolescent population and now even small children are glued to a small screen being narcotized by pixels and sounds that really have no value (except of course this content!).

So, that’s what I think.  What I imagine will be found is that the only way for government not to devolve back to the oligarchy that we currently “enjoy” is for there to be a few brakes on wealth.  I never thought I’d say this but maybe having a handful of people controlling 80% of the disposable income in the country is a really bad situation.  Maybe it should be 70% or, heaven help us, 65%!

And I’ve also begun to believe that it is necessary to have some degree of coercion to force regular people to take part in their own local government.  Possibly offices will be distributed by lottery, sort of like how jury selection is handled.  If your number comes up, you’ll have to be on the town zoning board or the budget committee.  Sure, we’ll make allowances and deferments but we can’t have only retirees and women in charge of communities.  It can be like what goes on for the members of the National Guard and Reserve.  Businesses will have to make allowances and forcing citizens to know how their towns are run will become normalized.  Make some kind of incentives to get people to attend the town meetings.  Give away scratch tickets or something.  Who knows, people might start finding out who their neighbors are.  They might even find out they don’t hate some of them.

I’ll cut it short here.  Leave your comments on what you disagree with and what I left out of Goodenoughia that needs to be in it to make it goodenoughia for you.

O damn Glaucon!  With all this talk we’ve missed the festival of the Thracian goddess Bendis.  I guess we’ll have to stream it on Netflix.

Update:

War Pig

Wagons and horses are not ideal. Believe me, we have a lot of Amish in my county and the pollution they deposit on the highways makes keeping your car or truck free from funk quite difficult. Every few hundred yards will be a scattered pile of horse apples. Would you want to have to house, feed, water and medicate a couple of horses who produce copious amounts of manure to be shoveled, collected, then placed on a steaming, odiferous compost pile that draws flies and their maggots as well as various rodents and large members of the order coleoptera?

Master Diver

In the 1890s, the horses in New York City produced over 2.5 million pounds of manure and sixty thousand gallons of urine every day. A wonderful source of rat, insect and airborne diseases.

photog

I’m seeing two votes against horsepower.  Duly noted.  But that was just a for instance.  The biggest changes to our world have occurred in the last few years and have been spurred by the indoctrination of our children to despise the civilization that produced them and all the things they take for granted.  Maybe the analysis says the change needed is the selection of teachers and school administrators.  Someone needs to start thinking about the problems that are now endemic in our society.  Women aren’t having children.  That way lies collapse.

TomD

And then, there is the baked in Achilles heel that ultimately destabilizes all democratic governments: When the population learns they can vote themselves “largess”. Elections soon devolve to a competition for politicians promising the most goodies.

Economic instability follows.

photog

In reply to TomD

Tom, eliminating the income tax and deficit spending might help to hold back some of this largesse.

Glenn W

I used to think that the wealthy in this country recognized that a healthy middle class was good for business, literally that a strong middle class is a “win-win” for everyone. I have now come to the conclusion that I was terribly naive. The uber wealthy want both money and power.

Once a person hits a certain level of wealth they no longer need more money. Sure, a bigger villa in Tuscany or a larger yacht may be nice but does it really matter? What’s an ambitious person to do? It looks like the answer is power. Sure you own a lot of nice stuff but look how many serfs I have.

I remember a few years back, Tucker Carlson was in a discussion (maybe with Ben Shapiro?) where he said that driverless trucks should be banned. He wanted the ban because so many American workers with only high school diplomas work as truck drivers that much of the middle class would be impoverished. I agree with Carlson on that. We need policies that encourage a strong middle class even if it hurts economic efficiency.

Economic efficiency is another thing I have become very leery of. I always liked Milton Friedman and at one time he had me convinced of the righteousness of completely free trade with no tariffs or import quotas. His argument went something like this: if American manufacturing goes to cheaper overseas manufacturers those products will still be sold in the U.S. The dollars generated from those sales will ultimately need to be spent in the U.S. thereby encouraging formation of new, more efficient businesses here. How did that work out? Well, all the manufacturing from the Midwest was relocated overseas and the profits generated did come back to the U.S. as bond sales. The Midwest was sucked dry but New York city (where the bond trading takes place) profited handsomely. Thanks but no thanks. Milton Friedman was wrong.

I also agree about encouraging direct participation in our own governance. I’m not sure what the solution is but I’m willing to hear anyone’s ides on the topic.

I said at the end of the third installment that we need to continue with the clean-up program. A lot will have to be fixed to get us back to a sane place to live.  Ain’t that the truth!

And the epicenters of this dysfunction are the urban centers.  Think of the states that are typically considered the red states and would probably be included in Goodenoughia; Missouri, Texas, Louisiana, Indiana, etc.  Some of the large cities in these states are war zones.  There are permanent populations that do not work and live off of welfare and crime of various types and are basically illiterate and anti-social.  These areas are the headquarters of criminal organizations that sell narcotics and engage in human trafficking of various sorts.  And since the George Floyd riots the police have abdicated responsibility for protecting the remaining portions of the urban population from these criminal elements.

This must be corrected.

First and foremost, the authority of the police must be reestablished.  The governors and legislatures of the effected states must produce laws that allow emergency powers to round up the worst and most dangerous criminals and take them permanently off the streets.  After that “broken windows” policing must be reestablished.  The ghettos need to be as safe as the business district.  All of this will require a very large prison system.  That is just the price of being a society.  And it makes sense for the prison system be as technologically advanced as possible to eliminate as much of the prison violence as is practical.  One thing that might help is restoring capital punishment for repeat violent offenders.  It would be a kindness to everyone.

So, there’s the band aid.  Now to attack the underlying problem.  Welfare does not need to be reformed.  It needs to be eliminated.  The idea is if you don’t work you don’t eat.  Certainly, this will have to be eased into but the idea is to force useless people to become useful.  This will require a lot of creative thinking on the part of municipal authorities.  But considering the number of pot holes currently existing in urban streets, road repair comes to mind.  But however it is done, we have to end the idea that we pay people to sit around on their streets shooting each other and playing basketball.  Those that prove that they can only rob and kill will be fed into the prison system.  Everyone else will adapt.

And next in the program is school.  School for the urban poor will also have to adapt.  For the cooperative, intelligent cohort it can be the normal public school; reading, writing, arithmetic.  For the unintelligent, it can be some kind of vocational training.  Even learning to use a broom and a mop is a viable skill that has some value.  For the uncooperative there is the road to prison with a last chance in a reform school type environment.  But what is uppermost is that the kids who actually can and want to learn are separated from the cretins and criminals.

The fact that our cities have been allowed to become war zones is the clearest proof that those in charge are unfit to serve.  Any city that doesn’t quickly adopt an improvement plan like the one I’ve outlined must be taken over by the state and forced into line.  Rudy Giuliani in the late 1990s proved unmistakably that empowering the police to combat crime, head on, works.  New York City’s subsequent relapse into chaos is clear proof that the correct political orientation must also be there.  In Goodenoughia any city administrations that allow anarchy and crime to go unchecked will be impeached by the Governor and replaced by a commission to oversee the administration of law and order.  And this can become a permanent arrangement if the locals refuse to maintain order.

I consider fixing the cities the emergency action needed to restore order.  Next up I’ll think of what other changes will turn Goodenoughia into a photog’s paradise.

Updates

Glenn W

I completely agree with everything you wrote. All hail photog! I would like to add another related item. A major driver, if not THE major driver, of these societies disintegrating is the breakdown of the family. This is another thing that will take some time to reverse but most of the feminist “reforms” that have discouraged two parent families need to be dismantled. To have well adjusted children the norm must be two parent families.

The thing that I think will be very difficult to do is to re-establish trust in the police in these nearly lawless areas. There are people I trust (not BLM types!) that have told stories about some really lousy things local police have done. Truth be told, I have a neighbor that is a policeman who has anger management issues. I do not feel more safe having him so close to my home. I really and truly hope I don’t get on his bad side.

You are correct though, law enforcement is a basic function of government and it needs to be reestablished everywhere immediately.

Glenn, I know that there are some very bad cops and I have very close relatives who are very negative on the police because they feel that policing often violates protected civil liberties.  Nevertheless trying to run a large city without the police doesn’t work.  Living in a city requires certain losses of freedom by definition.

What should be easier to define is behavior that requires the perpetrators to be incarcerated.  Theft, assault, reckless endangerment; all of these trample on someone else’s rights and require someone to apply force to stop their commission.

Things like helmet cams make it easier for cops to be monitored.  It will never be a perfect system but in places like New York and Los Angeles we are learning what it means to have no police force on duty.  It doesn’t work very well.