Saturday 2 March 2013

Ideas #3 - Revolutions

The current political system is abhorrent. Our parliamentary supervisors are as much slaves to the pound as we are. It is evident to me that things need to change. A good friend of mine pointed out once that most historical revolutions leave countries debilitated & crippled economically. I would agree with him to some extent although I would say that recent political movements have made me see fragilities in this theory. For instance most of the well documented historical revolutions that have failed are the revolutions of political systems that would compromise our current capitalist system. I have already discussed in detail the downfalls of capitalism.

“He who controls the past now controls the future. He who controls the future now controls the past” - George Orwell

This quote is relevant on this topic I would say. That's not to say that I'm advocating communism, I certainly see it's crippling effects on the welfare of the populous. But I do think that the media we consume is a consequence of capitalism. Most media outlets today are controlled by a handful of companies. Usually multinational & of course answering to no master save the share-holders. This is a giant gaping hole in our international community. The channels in question will only report on conflicts that suit there own vested interests & this misinforms the population. This is why we are left with the notion that if we revolt or try to change anything we will be left crippled. These are reminiscent of totalitarian scare tactics.

On a side note: Another thing which as been annoying me recently is that for some reason right-wing politicians seem to categorise anyone on the left as socialist. While socialism is certainly a left-wing political philosophy, it is not to say that there aren't other systems on the left of the spectrum. Yes often left-wing ideologies draw similarities with socialism, but it's not the same. It is socialism that is in the category of the left, not the left that is in the category of socialism. They just seem not to be able to think outside of their misinformed box.
    Personally I've been finding recently that socialism, capitalism even... dare I say it... monarchistic democracy are all outdated modes of governance. I believe that a contemporary & subsequently relevant system would be preferable. The current politics available to us were all devised in an economic, technologically & culturally foreign society. So I would postulate that a functional system would be both adaptive & fluid. It would be organized in such a way that when one generation has ceased to be relevant, the laws & principles of their society could easily be adapted in order to suit the needs of those who are in need.

Just to clarify at this point I would like to state that I believe Anarchism in its true & proper form would be a political ideal (Anarchism another left wing philosophy that isn't socialism). What I mean is that if it were possible for every person in the world to live every day without getting under each others feet or disagreeing with one another, there would be no need for government. We can deduce from this that the role of a government is not to control the populous (sorry Benito) it is to resolve disputes in a fair & unbiased way. Another proper function of a government is to take care of its people.
    A positive point about modern life in Britain is that we are privileged enough to experience a higher than average standard of living. Although our society is not perfect. To elaborate, things need to change. It seems that up to this point conservative politics in Britain has dominated & been based on the notion that you cannot consolidate wealth without suppressing the wealth of others. I believe this isn't true simply from a utilitarian perspective. As in the wealth of a nation is in the welfare of its people. Of course currency plays the role of the enabler, but should not be the focus of policies.
    Our current democracy is weighted too much to the big business & corporate wealth. I think it's about time we realized that there are other routes to prosperity. It would probably benefit us as a whole if our leaders were better educated in political science, sociology & economics. Of course in a society where it is mandatory for an MP to have this education, corruption could seep in via means of the education system. So it's important for us to examine the education system. An interesting system of education that could be applied here is the self-taught method. As to how these members would be elected a democratic system would probably be preferable. Although some modifications such as when re-voting parliament each members agenda should be assimilated as a simple text file or pamphlet with a preset design. The glamorous campaigns that we see in America are just open invitations for businessmen with bulging wallets to buy their favourite politics.
    Another friend of mine brought up a highly rational query to democracy as we know it here in the UK. She wondered why we don't vote on every policy. It's a simple enough observation which highlights the weaknesses of our governance. I can already hear the counter-argument: This would take too much time over each policy. But to be quite honest if I had been of age & given the chance I would have voted against the barbaric Iraq war. To resolve this I propose we assign groups of common people (much like jury duty) to asses the bills being put through parliament before they get put through & decide if they require public vote. Failing this we could vote on everything, or create a new house for deliberation of small possibly case specific policies which would not require public vote. Either way it should be easy to know what is being debated in the houses of parliament.
   
I also think that publicisation of certain ministries (eg. public transport) is advisable because as I've stated before, & I can't really stress this enough, corporations don't answer to the public. So publicisation in certain sectors relating to the public is optimal. Obviously we wouldn't want to take it to a ridiculous level like in communism. Just as long as we iron out the corruption we can have a bit more say over our public transport.

Thanks for reading.