What’s it all about?

 

Pinky: Gee, Brain. What are we going to do tonight?

Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world.

This is a work in progress. Intended to serve as a scaffolding for thought and research. I am worried that we (humanity) have made such big strides ahead in technology but so little in our understanding about the big issues in life as Why, What and How?

Here we go!

The question is:

Why humanity doesn’t live in peace and prosperity?

Why humanity doesn’t live in everlasting peace and prosperity if we have already mastered the technological means and have access to the resources for that?

 

Possible answers:

 

Is it a greedy clique of corrupt politicians and business people who conspire against us to protect their undeserved profits because they know of no other way to safeguard their privileges other than instigating division, conflict, war and chaos?

If that is true – how powerful are they?

How can we stop them from doing that and prevent anyone from doing that in the future?

 

Or are our institutions the culprit?

Is it their failure to allocate resources and distribute profits fairly while safeguarding against those who plan to disturb the peace to gain unfair advantage?

Why is humanity stumbling from war to war for no particular reason using ever more sophisticated instruments to kill and maim fellow human beings?

 

Why?

 

Why does our justice system seem eager to punish severely petty crimes but keen to ignore major ones?

 

Those are obvious questions that anyone can relate to. What bothers me that there doesn’t seem to be a consensus on how are we going to go about resolving those issues before humanity self-destructs? I know: Democracy, Free Markets, Rule of Law! Truth is – regardless of the validity of those they don’t seem to work.

Why?

 

Where is the theoretical, philosophical, ethical, legal knowledge that we need to develop to overcome these obstacles and what are those obstacles?

One possible answer could be – our institutions do not have the built-in accountability devices to guard against them being highjacked by corrupt people who misuse them for undeserved gains.

 

For me a first step would be better understanding of what’s happening because personally it has been more and more clouded with the years.

 

First, I thought communism was good and capitalism bad.

Then, capitalism is good and communism bad.

 Democracy and market forces should take care of that….

 

 

And that seemed to be so true because then we won the Cold war – Soviet style communism crumbled under its own stupidity eager crowds dismantled the Berlin war and turned the pieces of the hated barrier into souvenirs – under the sounds of Pink Floyd singing “break down the wall…” Then the US bombed the Serbs!

Then NATO didn’t disband and kept going for no obvious reason. Then the Chinese communist system managed to bring their country out of poverty to the leading position in the world economy.

Then America is in multi trillion-dollar debt…

I still believe that it’s not by the benevolence of baker and shoemaker that we enjoy prosperity and that we have those inalienable rights.

What I don’t know is – what went wrong?

 

I know Marx does – he was confident that it was the ownership of the means of production that was the problem but while that does seem to be true with China’s success and the recent economic crisis triggered by US financial institutions it doesn’t seem to explain everything. Communism did fail in Russia and Eastern Europe.

Therefore, I am starting this blog hoping in a series of essays to manage to get maybe if not straightforward answers – to at least build a scaffolding that will help me scramble up to the shoulders of those giants and be able to see further (or perhaps to the tops of their heads?).

 

What’s in it for you?

Not much.

I am doing this mostly for myself. Why making it public?

If my thoughts help you in your own quest for knowledge – please, tell me – your encouragement may add a plank or pillar to my scaffold as I may help you build yours.

In general, I believe that understanding the fascinating and disappointing reality we live in will help enjoy it more and for longer.

 Last, but not least, is space travel.

What does space travel have to do with all this – you may ask…

It’s obvious – space travel is the latest and most exciting adventure of humanity. If anything is going to pull us out of the swamp of hate and division that we are drowning in is the unifying vision of a common quest. It may also provide purpose and employment for all those talented inventors, engineers and technicians who are now preoccupied with creating fancy tools for destruction. So my aim is to travel to space and in between now and then work to promote space travel for civilian purposes as a a worthy endeavor that will save humanity and civilization and may prove a useful substitute for the dangerous and wasteful arms race

 amazon.com/Mish-Mash-Elli

So that’s my plan to take over the world. I know it may sound kind of naïve or even dodgy but that’s all I can think of for now and… you never know.

 

Imagine...

If the entire world were a single nation with a federal constitutional parliamentary republican form of government and a multi-party system what would it be like?

It should be a world of eternal piece, progress, happiness and justice. A democratic system driven by ever prospering free market economy.

But…

Liberal democracy is in crisis.

The best attempt to create a federation of nations — the EU, even if it is undoubtedly successful being the #1 economy in the world, has encountered serious problems.

Communist China has eliminated poverty and is on its path to world domination.

On the other hand, inequality is increasing in the West and undermining the core values of democracy and free markets. 

Mish Mash for busy minds

Let’s Sing the Ukrainian Song Right

Merkel 1, Putin 0, Obama -1.

The current score of the dirty chess game started by Merkel is as above. I’ll explain;

She starts with a half-hearted offer for EU negotiations that is easy to reject. It’s understandable - Ukraine is a big country with big issues and Germany is reluctant to pay for it. In jumps Putin like a knight in shining armour (or more likely - half naked) with bags of resque money to reward his now rejected friend Yanukovych - the brave president of Ukraine elected by the people. But the people it seems don’t want Yanukovych and they don’t want Putin’s money (and they are aware he is half naked) - they would rather prefer the shiny EU with difficult conditions and no money hoping mostly to rush to Germany and make some easy Euros perhaps because any economic development is difficult to imagine in an EU where only Germany is booming and the rest are stagnating (especially the new and poor members). Bam - Yanukovych is gone (even Putin doesn't love him anymore) and the mob establishes a pro EU government by making sure the parliament votes as they prefer. Also they are quick to ignite ethnic tensions by banning the Russian language historically spoken by a big part Ukrainian citizens an act guaranteed to ingnite anger and indignation.

At this moment the score is Merkel: 1 and Putin: - 1. Merica is just zero for now waiting for an opportunity to open, Putin counter attacks ostensibly “to protect” compatriots in Crimea but mostly to get back at Merkel for making him look dumb. But Merkel keeps her cool - instead Obama jumps into the fray to see if he can catch some easy fish in these troubled waters but only exposes his irrelevance. After having wasted any influence and good will he may have had by not attending the Olympics he has no options but to talk pointedly while no one hardly listens. That is a minus 1 and plus 1 for Putin to equal zero.

But where are the interests of the people of Ukraine in this whole game you may ask? Sadly no one seems to care! Even the new rulers in Kiev seem to be more interested in distributing government posts that will enable them to profit at the back of the people of Ukraine, the US taxpayer, the people of Russia and even the EU taxpayers if they are not vigilant.

I know what you are thinking - this is a useless sad story without a happy ending and no inspiring moral. There is moral: we the people have the power to keep the corrupt scheming rulers accountable. The people of Ukraine - Ukrainians, Russians, Tatars, Jews, Moldovans, Gypsies have to unite against the demagogues - not because it is a good thing to do but because the other option is slavery under the boot of Russia, the EU, the IMF too but first and foremost under their own homegrown corrupt oligarchs and politicians.

The price of gas goes up? Guess who will profit!

Epilogue

In a warm August evening in 1978 I was walking along the seaside of the Bulgarian resort of Primorsko with a couple of friends when we met a large group of Russians who invited us to join them. Soon after that we met a similarly large group of Polish holidaymakers and sat all together around a table in the park. The Russians brought a couple of bottles of Stolichnaya vodka and after some rounds offered to sing a Russian song. The moment they started there was trouble: “This is not a Russian song,” the Polish guys objected. “It is a Polish song!” The proceeded to agree the sing the song only if the Russians agree it is in fact a Polish song. Tempers flared  - fueled by the Stolichnaya. The on of the Russians shouted above all: “It’s actually an Ukrainian song! Let’s sing the Ukrainian song!” For reasons incomprehensible to me but apparently obvious to the Russians - the Polish agreed and we all sang together the Ukrainian song. All of us Bulgarians, Russians and Polish - there wasn't a single Ukrainian present.

So it looks like we (as we the people, we the humanity, we the nations) can do it. We an sing the Ukrainian song and sing it good and not out of tune if we want to. If we don’t we will be enslaved and no one can save us.

In God's Image

If we the people are created in God's image then we must have God's perfection, sovereignty, power and knowledge. Unfortunately we don't. Most people are far from perfect, easily oppressed or enslaved and often helpless. Our knowledge is frequently inadequate and ignorance causes most of humanity's troubles.

Should we then discard the notion that we were created in God's image as wishful dreaming, an unsubstantiated prejudice by an self-conceited primate that imagines itself at the top of the evolutionary ladder or food chain even if there are others who are bigger, faster, more elegant and, who knows, perhaps even smarter. The answer is: No!

Because humanity has demonstrated capability for greatness even through periods when hate, ignorance and barbarity which sometimes threatened the extermination not only of humankind but all live on Earth.

We the people have shown that we have the power to change things the way we want them if we act together. Although a group of people can act to oppress another group of people and extract short term advantage that never works for longer periods. Therefore it is in the strategic interest of everybody to act together in the name of high ideas and protect our lives, freedom and the right to pursue opportunities.

People can be coerced into submission through threats and violence and such an contraption may even achieve certain illusionary success. The truth is that sooner or later it will collapse under the weight of lack of understanding and failure to accommodate the interests of all participants like a Tower of Babel – a grand vision but lacking substance.

The answer is in personal sovereignty. If everyone is created in God's own image then the opinion of everyone matters. On the other hand only cooperation can make that personal sovereignty, safety, freedom and opportunity possible. Coming from the premise that you can only love what you know. And the person you can know best is the one closest to you – yourself. And only if you love yourself a lot you can love your neighbor a lot too (you cannot possibly love your neighbor more because it is impossible to know someone else better than yourself). Everything else comes after that including the love of God.

To sum it up: people are unique and the best judges of their own interests. On the other hand these interests can only be protected and pursued in cooperation. Politics is the mechanism of this cooperation.

Life, Freedom and Wealth are Private

Life, freedom and wealth are individual. They constitute the good life. To pursue these goals people cooperate in the fields of business, politics and ideas.

Business is best governed by the market but that being based on human judgement is not perfect. Its utility is in the fact that he market aggregates value judgements from a large number of people thus reducing but not eliminating the possibility of error. The danger of error exists because market choices might be made on the basis of insufficient or erroneous information. Therefore the market needs regulation by the government. The advantage is that political value judgement is formed in a manner different from that of the market thus minimising the danger of aggravating the same error. The way politics define value does not have the numerical measure that the market has and its less straightforward and well defined. That is why politics need a political theory which is based on philosophy and especially ethics and resulting theory of law and economics where it negotiates the legitimacy of its interaction with business.

Freedom is what makes us human. Bees and ants have better organised and consequently more effective and efficient societies but lack freedom and the concept of the primacy of individual interest. In contrast monkeys are on a constant vacation with few if any constraints (especially for the stronger individuals) and where food and shelter are basically free. Yet if compared to humanity their abilities to enjoy life are limited.

People unite to pursue their goals. This political activity has the potential for undesirable side effects. The first are grouped around the necessity to establish rules. That can be mitigated by negotiating the rules. The others are grouped around the potential of united people to exploit and oppress other people leading naturally to the danger of humanity obliterating itself. This threat is overcome by the elaborate security arrangements that define human history.

Faith and art define humanity and might have played a decisive role in its survival. Art and faith have an legitimate but uneasy relationship to philosophy through aesthetics and theology and to politics and business through their influence on public opinion and distribution channels and religion. Nevertheless governing faith and art using political or business tools have proved to be disastrous.

The modern democratic state based on a prosperous middle class thriving in a well regulated by an unobtrusive government market economy is the pinnacle of contemporary governance achieved through centuries of experimentation with theocracies, hereditary monarchies, primitive democracies like the ancient Greek and Roman and merchant republics like Venice and Florence. Apart from it there are states that are state only in form but not in substance which I will label collectively kleptocracies. These are states where the governing elites are concerned with providing exclusive privileges for themselves at the expense of the people they are supposed to serve.

Interests and Rights

Philosophy

The thesis that individual interests ultimately converge to form municipal, national and international political and business institutions will be the focal point of my research. Initially the priorities of these interests can be discerned as personal above community and if rated by urgency short term as more important than long term. An qualitative prioritization of interests is possible along a modified Maslow's pyramid of needs could follow the the prioritization along the lines of security/survival issues, followed by freedom and last the existence of opportunities for building a better life. In other words: you cannot be free if you fear about your security and you cannot be sure of your safety if your fate is determined by someone else when you are not free, and you cannot be either safe or free if you are denied opportunities to work for your happiness.

Political reality is a social construct. There is no contradiction in the above statement. Political institutions are created by people acting together to pursue their common goals. On the other hand institutions impose, rules of behaviour, utilise resources and change the world in ways that affect not only the people that created them and not only in ways that were initially intended. Consequently, people can change these embodiments of their political ideas in ways they consider better suited to further their (people's) goals. The influence, growth and durability of these institutions depends on how well they work towards furthering the interests of the people involved in them and the resistance they encounter. Individual rights are a rough guide towards this stated compliance of policies with interests. The more universal recognition rights have the more people will work towards defending them consequently these rights will have more weight.

Therefore ultimately the priority of interests will be cyclical with the individual interested in promoting collective interests as this will help achieve individual goals more effectively and efficiently and the same is valid for the interdependence of short term and long term interests. While immediate needs might be more pressing especially if they involve security and survival, but planning ahead can make survival and safety much more easier to achieve. The interdependence of interests grouped by survival/security, freedom and opportunity is discussed in the first paragraph.

Conclusion
The reason why game theory often does not lead to satisfactory results when analysing real life developments. s that people tend to escalate often and fast from security/survival/sustainability concerns to attempts to secure freedom and striving towards opportunity led by the correct understanding that they are inseparably linked. That's why rebellions are possible because innovation is humanities most proven method to deal with adversity and freedom and opportunity are crucial for innovation.

The Choice of Freedom

Liberty has two interrelated aspects. First it is an inalienable right and that means that you are not free to sell your freedom. and any contract to that end is null and void.
The second aspect is the realization of this right. The mere fact of it’s existence doesn’t give me anything tangible. It’s up to me to make use of it. Freedom if used knowledgeably can lead to happiness or if you make the wrong choices that can severely limit your freedom. So knowledge how to make freedom your own is crucial.
Paul said it simply: You’ll know the truth and the truth will make you free. But what is that truth that will make us free? That’s something you have to find for yourself. If Paul knew it he certainly would have given us the answer. Truth is personal and truth is born in discussion.
We organize in families, neighborhoods, churches, business partnerships, bridge clubs, and countries to achieve different goals in our lives. We can only be free with the help and acknowledgement of others. A savage person alone on an island has limited choices and respectively limited freedom, free from oppression but oppressed by need. We need the help of others to be free. We are free to choose what we want in life, but we can only achieve it effectively in cooperation. Truth is personal because the most important part of it is: what we want. It’s our purpose in life and only we can know it even if we can only achieve it cooperation with others.
There is no such thing as country, society and the economy outside of our combined interests. And we are the only one who really know and can take care of these interests. Any institutions or persons who claim that they know better than us are either confused or hypocritical.
Liberty is not about freedom from the government. Government helps us keep our freedom. And if it doesn’t, we have the right and obligation to choose a government that will. It may be easy or it may be hard but we have to do it in order to earn our freedom. Liberty is our right, the knowledge what we want and how to get there and what we are doing to successfully get there. (not mindless work to avoid idling but creative, passionate action geared to win).
Majority rule is about choices and the majority may be right and they may be wrong in the end they are only human the only gamble here being that the majority is more often right than wrong. still that doesn’t give the majority any right to oppress the minority whose rights are equally inalienable. The truth is born in discussion and as the truth is essential for freedom we need to make sure every voice is heard so we can have more chance to strike the mother lode of wisdom. Democracy is about, majority rule, observing the rights of everyone and good governance but ultimately designed to assist us in our pursuit of happiness.
We the people have Liberty and no one can take it from us. Still it’s up to us to turn this right to freedom into the reality of happiness without which freedom will have no meaning.

Freedom, Talent and Happiness

Creativity and imagination are the most precious resources of civilization. They are the building material forming the basis for understanding and invention. Luckily it seems their seeds are spread widely and abundantly. At the same time they seem to easily wither and die without proper nurture and care.

A dead dream is everyone’s loss and people can’t follow their dreams if they are hungry, scared or oppressed. Need, fear, and ignorance kill freedom and with freedom the chance for understanding and prosperity.

Freedom doesn’t come free of charge. Precious as it is it must be cherished, earned, and defended. It’s not a goal but a process and indispensable first step towards good life and happiness. Freedom is not divisible. You cannot be partly free. Freedom can only reign supreme or else it dies.

You cannot be truly free if your neighbor is not. That’s even more so if you have special talents and in my opinion everyone has talents. Only some don’t bother to develop them. That’s not simple laziness that is a crime. By ignoring your talents you rob yourself and those close to you from the happiness and good life that you deserve.