Finale
File: c:/ddc/Angel/BestIntentions/Finale.html
Date: Mon Oct 29 22:55:03 2007
Wed Aug 14 20:48:16 2019
(C) OntoOO/ Dennis de Champeaux
The chapter on the detoriation of the income distribution described the old, recurring phenomenon of a growing segment being poor and a shrinking segment having more income and wealth. Taxation has been the traditional way to supplement market incomes and to reduce wealth. But taxation does not address the root cause: a growing segment having shrinking marketable skills. Durant reports the typical outcome: a collapse because bureacracies become corrupt or extortive.
A candidate novel threat, also suggested in the income distribution chapter, are societies where a majority does not participate in the economy anymore and relies on system charity, because we postulate that this situation is not stable.
The consequences of environmental, physical resource limitations are the topics of Diamond, Meadows et al and Randers. This threat is only novel because this time around the world's economies are intertwined and thus a collapse is likely global.
These threats can trigger each other, where which one is the first is anyones guess. With a heavy heart we proceed.
Welfare states are burdened by excessive obligations to support large majorities. Awareness of civil rights dwarfs dedication to civil obligations. (Googling "civil rights" and "civil obligations" yields the results ratio of 785.) Primary economic activities shrink percentage wise, while the service sector increases. Keeping the size of the public sector down remains an ongoing battle. Healthcare in the US at 18% of GDP is an exceptional worrisome drain on its economy.
Nations are participating in supranational organizations. However, these organizations are weak because surrendering sovereignty is for now out of the question. Nations having to deal with too many internal problems limits commitments to addressing global topics.
There is no shortage of adherents of democracies that beat the drums regarding its superiority against the competition; see for example [Economist]. All the standard advantages are rehashed. However, they ignore the inability of democracies to deal with irrational population increases, economies that rely on plundering the planet and the disappearance of middle classes that are replaced by majorities that depend on government assistance programs.
China's ability to impose a 1-child rule to battle out of control population increases is a key example where democracies have failed: the inability to restrict a right deemed to be fundamental. The reigning banner motto of liberal democracies is 'civil rights', while 'civil obligations' - the equivalent of 'noblesse oblige' as a necessary complement - is absent.
China's unique 1-child mandate places the democracies in an ideological catch-up mode. The West claims that its economies are superior because they foster innovation. The West still has an economic advantage but its lead is shrinking rapidly. Sure, the defense can be that China is doing only me-too activities that do not depend on innovation. However, the West is now handicapped by carrying the weight of non-self reliant majorities.
If the (Western) democracies want to live up to their claim to superiority they better upgrade their constitutions, instead of creating a next tax to support a 'redundant' population.
Remains the 'detail' how to constrain a population as China did in
1979 without using China's dictatorial power. An example of the
following steps could make a population restriction at least
explainable:
- The world's carrying capacity for life (human and all other species)
is finite
- Humanity needs to leave room for other species, which reduces what
is available for humanity
- Meadows et al [Meadows] claims that 4B is the natural carrying
capacity of the world to feed its population without using
unsustainable resources
- Hence (given the Tragedy of the Commons), all nations must reduce
their population, say, by 40%.
Passing this (or similar) mandate through the membrane of a nation's sovereignty - especially when some nations refuse to participate - is certainly challenging. The next step is even harder. Positioning such a mandate so that the population of a democracy accepts the restriction voluntarily is where a democracy can demonstrate its claimed superiority.
This topic has more visible variants. Globalization allows large companies to replace employees in the West by the creation of subsidiary companies in low-cost countries. In addition, there is the 'traditional' destruction of jobs due to Information Technology, the most recent incarnation of the Industrial Revolution. These two forces also increase the segment of the population that depend on economic assistance and/or the financial transfer volume into that segment.
The decline is still ongoing. Here trends of the fractions of the national income of the bottom 50% for two different nations, the US and The Netherlands. The contributions to the income taxes are shown as well.
| Country | Year | Percent of all income | Percent of all tax paid |
| US | |||
| 1996 | 14% | 4.6% | |
| 2007 | 12% | 3% | |
| The Netherlands | |||
| 1999 | 25% | 8% | |
| 2005 | 23% | 5% |
The bottom 50% in both societies remains slipping in their share of the nation's income and their contribution to the nation's tax revenues. (See also the 1983-2003 data for the US bottom 60% regarding the trend of share of net worth and share of income in the appendix "Data regarding the bottom of the US society" in the Economy chapter.)
A solution consists 'simply' of explaining to the citizens that "survival of the fittest" needs to be restored and that procreation requires a license that will be provided when applicants pass a few simple tests.
This solution may need alternatives to prevent an uprising. We leave the details as a wake-up call to our politicians who have always ignored this problem.
Creating taxes left and right to avoid dealing with root causes (declining economic self-sufficiency of the population) needs to be blocked. Allocating tax monies without accountability (public education and healthcare) needs to be curbed.
Consider the following limiting requirement for a tax: it should apply to 2/3 of those who propose the tax. This would invalidate immediately the Bill-Gates-assessment. It would have blocked in retrospect also corporate income taxes, lodging taxes, cigarette taxes, gambling taxes, pet taxes, soda drink taxes, amusement taxes, etc.
Democracies have been designed with checks and balances to prevent things to get out of control. There is, however, no counter force against taxability. Private sector companies go bankrupt if their expenditures are getting too high. Nations need a taxation limit principle to prevent them to raise taxes desperately. This will force them to scale back the monopolistic financial transfer flows and deal with root causes: now, growing economic dysfunctional population segments.
When do we agree that this insanity must stop?
The chaos in Pakistan after the 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto is a sad argument in favor of what we advocate here. Oppositions would not be able to impact the political process by assassinations; they would have to come up with more convincing philosophies, ideas, descriptions of the status quo and proposals how to make changes. Instead, her assassination caused international concerns because of the worry that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal would fall in the wrong hands.
The press would play a more prominent role with this fix. Instead of investigating whether a candidate inhaled, paid taxes for a nanny, or speculate excessively on private life aspects, they would describe and critique the standpoints and views of the different parties - even play an active role by elucidating topics avoided by everyone.
The society needs to maintain large majorities of individuals/ families who are economic self-sufficient.Such a principle may still require a legal innovation how to enforce it.
Advocating companies to be 'responsible' does not work. A company cannot incur expenses to reduce its ecological footprint if the competition does not. Hence it is again the governments - by catering for the here-and-now desires of their consumers - that they fail to safeguard the interests of future generations.
Things are actually way worse. Governments depend on the status quo that generate the taxable revenue streams to support the majorities that depend now for their survival on an extensive set of entitlements.
Breaking this catch-twenty-two without descending into chaos first is the miracle we are waiting for.
Energy companies feeling the squeeze have suddenly agreed that alternative energy, green energy, etc. is part of the future mix. They can even assert in advertisements that there is more than enough for the coming 100 years. How they pull the 100 years out of the hat in the context of still exponential population increases is a mystery. More important is that they reveal a fatal, implicit stance that humanity has about the planet's resources: these can be accessed and consumed, because future generations must fend for themselves. Sure, humanity in the past deforested, hunted species into extinction, scraped away easy reachable resources, and messed up the planet in too many other ways, but that is not a justification for us now doing the same, amplified with the most advanced tools provided by technology.
Individuals are often labeled as self-centered, egotists - part of the ME generation. This pales in comparison by humanity claiming now ownership of resources accumulated during the last billion years. And for what purposes - may we ask? To support a population that exceeds the carrying capacity of the planet? And why do we need to do that?
In short, we need a worldwide mandate for sustainable economies. Not the marketing version, but the one where humanity has a zero foot print on the planet. Further foot dragging is criminal - the galactic version.
The economies of member nations need to be indefinitely sustainable.Enforcement of this principle may require a legal innovation as well.
We can safely ignore here the question how to muster the political will to establish these principles. Early commentary suggests that only a next global calamity will get things moving.
WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED* to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
* to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
* to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
* to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,AND FOR THESE ENDS
* to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and
* to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and
* to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and
* to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS
Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.
These are great aims, but are they adequate to deal with humanity's challenges (and for life in general), for this century and further out?
Individuals and organizations have goals at many levels of time-scale. Circular time - in which there are no big changes - is sufficient for most individuals and for small organizations. The UN Preamble lists as goals:
-- to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedomThese are certainly worthwhile goals from the perspective of individuals, although they ignore the costs dimension to pursue them.
-- economic and social advancement of all peoples
But what has the UN Preamble to offer about the goals that go beyond individual strivings? Can anything be proposed about humanity? About life in general on this planet? In terms of non-circular time?
We do not perceive anything of significance in the UN Preamble that we can latch on to. This hampers the recognition of the macro challenges we have identified in this text. Hence the proposed dealings of their fixes are out of the UN's scope. Can the UN be alerted to broaden their charter?
The lack of accepted (non-trivial) transcendental goals for life on the planet is a core reason why acceptance, by the UN, by nations as well as by individuals of our fixes is very hard. Here an example of a candidate goal.
It took several billions of years before a preliminary version of consciousness to emerge in a cantankerous species. We propose as humanity's main mission to spread it in the Universe. This likely requires major genetic engineering to create a space-hardened version of humanity, or even a silicon-carbon hybrid. Cutting to size humanity's ego is step one.
Due to limited resources we have a narrow window to get into the Universe. If we fail, humanity will likely be wiped out and it will take many millions of years before another variant of life on Earth, if any, if ever, will have another chance, [Gott].
Consciousness is not a mandatory consequence of evolution. Humanity shares the planet with millions of other species - as successful as we are - without it. So ...
This specific transcendental goal is certainly an 'acquired taste', lacking immediate appeal. We leave it to others to pursue ones among which humanity can rally first and thereby surrender acquired rights.
Who gets the ball rolling?
[Economist] Democracy's decline/ Crying for freedom, The Economist, pp 58-60, vol 395, no 8665, 2010 January.
[Gott] Gott, J.R., Time Travel in Einstein's Universe: The Physical Possibilities of Travel Through Time, Weidenfeld London, 2001.
[Meadows] Meadows, D., J. Randers, & D. Meadows, Limits to Growth, The 30-Year Update, Chelsea Green Publishing Co., 2004.
For instance, it may be that machines will take over most of the work that is of real, practical importance, but that human beings will be kept busy by being given relatively unimportant work. ... Thus people would spend their time shining each other shoes, driving each other around in taxicabs, making handicrafts for one another, waiting on each other's tables, etc.In another scenario, the machines take over from humanity and all bets are off when that would happen. Yet another author, Vernor Vinge, has already suggested, way earlier, that humanity is the midwife of another machine species and will subsequently step aside or wither away. Material from the anonymous author X have been used by Ray Kurzweil in The Singularity is Near to illustrate what will happen when the machines take over, and by Bill Joy in Why the Future Doesn't Need Us to illustrate the potential danger of slowly creeping advances in technology on which humanity relies more and more.
All these scenarios depend on two assumptions:
- Moore's law, claiming that computer processors double their speed
every two years, and
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) making rapid progress
Both of these do not hold. Moore's law stopped around 2004. There
are no 16Ghz processors available. We do have machines with multiple
processors, but AI does not have parallel algorithms and
cognitive operations require typically exponential resources.