(2): UK 'post mortem', 2nd discussion between Steve and Fred Gohlke
(2): UK 'post mortem', 2nd discussion between
Steve and Fred Gohlke
From:
Subject:
Election-Methods Digest, Vol 132, Issue 14
To:
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015
12:01:57 -0700
…......................................
Hi Fred,
Thank you for your
reply. I'll tag my responses with S:
F: re: "I would
like to understand exactly what you mean by the difference
between 'internal and external proportionality'."
External proportionality is the relatively static division of
political
interests, as reflected by party representation in
a legislature.
Internal proportionality is the
relatively dynamic division of political
interests as
reflected by the range of thoughts and feelings about the
world around us that each of us carry within ourselves.
S: Using your
definitions, I see each person's somewhat different 'internal
proportionality' as what would guide each citizen as how to
participate or not in electing a rep, e.g. to choose which
candidate(s) to rank. This 'proportionality' is what I sometimes
refer to as a person's 'scale of values'.
F: re: "I
see the proportionality that could be guaranteed by APR (as
mentioned) above my comments to James Gilmour) would offer what you
seem
to want: 'to choose representatives that represent the
entire community'."
Although I've seen your
comments about APR, I have no deep understanding
of the
method. As far as I've been able to tell, it is a way to weigh
votes for party candidates. However, that is not what I'm concerned
about. I'm concerned about the way influence on the
political process
is distributed throughout the community.
I, and many others like me,
are not members of, and do not
subscribe to the positions proclaimed by,
any party. Can you
tell me how much influence APR will give us on the
choice of
candidates for public office?
…............ how
does APR let non-partisans seek out the members of the community best
suited to lead it?
S: If APR already
existed in your country, and you only wanted to rank (vote for)
attractive candidates whose scale of values are closely matched with
your own 'internal proportionality', you could do this without
'joining' any organization, face to face. You would do this as
follows:
During APR's primary
election you would rank (1,2,3, etc.) all the voluntary, social
organizations that had applied directly to elect their own rep(s)
during the next general election, i.e applied to the central
electoral commission to become and official electoral 'association'.
These organization would presumably not only include all the existing
geographically defined associations (electoral districts) and
political parties, but also a number of nongeographically defined
organizations (e.g. interest groups: economic, religious, social,
environmental, etc.)You would rank these according to the degree to
which each organization seemed to mirror your own. In any case,
you would, as a result, become a registered vote for general election
purposes through the surviving organization (i.e. association) that
you had ranked most highly. You would expect that the candidates who
later would run to represent this organization would also have
similar aims and concerns to your own, and that at least one of them
would represent you very well in the legislative assembly.
For the general
election itself, the central electoral commission would ensure that
you would receive your official ballot at your most local polling
station, i.e. even if your official association and ballot is
different from the list of candidates for that local district. Each
ballot paper originating from each association would also contain a
Section B which would also allow a voter to rank as few or as many
candidates seeking to represent associations other than the one in
which she is registered. Consequently, you would rank as few or as
many of the hundreds of candidate in the whole country during the
general election as you might wish. As a result, you would be
represented by the one elected candidate in the whole assembly you
had ranked most highly. She would have a weighted vote in the
assembly exactly equal to the number of citizens who had elected her.
If none of the candidates you ranked received enough votes to be
elected, APR's ballot allows you to require your first choice but
eliminated candidate to transfer your vote to the weighted vote of
the elected candidate she favors most, e.g. the elected candidate
highest on her pre-declared list.
In this way, I see APR
as offering you 'the means to seek out and elect
those who
have the particular blend of qualities needed to address and
resolve the issues that are of current concern'.
What
do you think?
I
look forward to your feedback.
P.S.
If you wish, ask Steve to email you a copy of his more systematic
explanation of APR.
Good Morning, Steve
This will be a slow process. Empowering the people is not a trivial
issue. It has many facets.
re: I see each person's somewhat different 'internal
proportionality' as what would guide each citizen
as how to participate or not ...
I agree, particularly with regard to "each citizen". A democratic
process is (or, rather, should be) bottom-up. It must be inclusive but
it cannot be coercive. Each of us must be allowed to participate in the
political process to the full extent of our desire and ability. In the
U. S., the people have been excluded from the political process for so
long that many of them have been schooled in the art of disinterest.
Such people will not trust an inclusive process until they have seen it
work.
When we devise an inclusive democratic process, some people will
participate, others will learn to participate, and some will never
participate. From the point of view of the community, those who will
not participate in its government add no value to the political process.
However, all the rest do, so the first step in devising an inclusive
process must be to distinguish between the two types of citizens. It
has been shown, by Archon Fung of Harvard and many others, that, when
people who want to participate in the political process, deliberate on
the issues that concern the community, their efforts can be productive.
re: ... in electing a rep, e.g. to choose which candidate(s)
to rank.
This raises the most important question in politics: Who names the
candidates? I see you mentioned this issue, as follows:
re: During APR's primary election you would rank (1,2,3, etc.)
all the voluntary, social organizations that had applied
directly to elect their own rep(s) during the next general
election, i.e applied to the central electoral commission to
become and official electoral 'association' ... You would
rank these according to the degree to which each organization
seemed to mirror your own.
How would I know, with any degree of certainty, the aims of the
organizations? Is AARP an organization to help retired people or a
marketing enterprise? Is it reasonable to think the lay citizen will do
the exhaustive research necessary to rank the multitude of organizations
seeking to increase their power and influence by placing an advocate in
the government?
You mentioned sending me a more complete explanation of APR. I'd like
to see the explanation of the groundwork. I don't think it's difficult
to arrange for the people to decide who they want to represent them in
their government and I'm anxious to see your approach. I may offer a
counter-suggestion as a step in the slow process of re-thinking our
political infrastructure.
Oh, yes. I'd better mention that I don't have the latest computer
doo-dads. I do all my work in a DOS environment and copy it to Windows
2000 when I go on the internet. There are some 'flash' things that
don't work on my computer.
Am I old-fashioned? Yup. I'm 86. I work in text, learning new
whizz-bangs doesn't appeal to me.
Fred Gohlke
Help people to become self employed (sole proprietors or owners of 1-person
limited liability company)
Thats where democracy starts.
What are we mumbeling about democracy when 40+ hours every week - people go
to work and do what they are told to do.
They have to start co-deciding with the people they meet every day and
about the way they want to do business.
A "Ltd." can be founded and maintained these days for as cheap as 30 GBP a
month flat price... this is something everyone can afford and it can be
managed online.
At the click of a button, people could "invite" others to collaborate (thus
join their business) ... Everyone can have a personal "HOLDING Ltd." which
ones 0+ other Ltd. for all the entrepreneurial projects they are engaging
in. This kind of culture has to happen and.... THE TIME IS NOW :-) The
"self employed sector" is growing like never before - and if you already
have to create:
"Model Article Of Association" (which can be enforced by an APP), then this
is how people can start to practice democracy in every day life.
Only if they do that, they will discover and want more influence in all
kinds of aspects of their lives.... if they do not make that step, they
will stay wage slaves forever...
On Fri, Jun 26, 2015 at 4:42 PM, Fred Gohlke fredgohlke@verizon.net wrote:
Good Morning, Steve
This will be a slow process. Empowering the people is not a trivial
issue. It has many facets.
re: I see each person's somewhat different 'internal
proportionality' as what would guide each citizen
as how to participate or not ...
I agree, particularly with regard to "each citizen". A democratic process
is (or, rather, should be) bottom-up. It must be inclusive but it cannot
be coercive. Each of us must be allowed to participate in the political
process to the full extent of our desire and ability. In the U. S., the
people have been excluded from the political process for so long that many
of them have been schooled in the art of disinterest. Such people will not
trust an inclusive process until they have seen it work.
When we devise an inclusive democratic process, some people will
participate, others will learn to participate, and some will never
participate. From the point of view of the community, those who will not
participate in its government add no value to the political process.
However, all the rest do, so the first step in devising an inclusive
process must be to distinguish between the two types of citizens. It has
been shown, by Archon Fung of Harvard and many others, that, when people
who want to participate in the political process, deliberate on the issues
that concern the community, their efforts can be productive.
re: ... in electing a rep, e.g. to choose which candidate(s)
to rank.
This raises the most important question in politics: Who names the
candidates? I see you mentioned this issue, as follows:
re: During APR's primary election you would rank (1,2,3, etc.)
all the voluntary, social organizations that had applied
directly to elect their own rep(s) during the next general
election, i.e applied to the central electoral commission to
become and official electoral 'association' ... You would
rank these according to the degree to which each organization
seemed to mirror your own.
How would I know, with any degree of certainty, the aims of the
organizations? Is AARP an organization to help retired people or a
marketing enterprise? Is it reasonable to think the lay citizen will do
the exhaustive research necessary to rank the multitude of organizations
seeking to increase their power and influence by placing an advocate in the
government?
You mentioned sending me a more complete explanation of APR. I'd like to
see the explanation of the groundwork. I don't think it's difficult to
arrange for the people to decide who they want to represent them in their
government and I'm anxious to see your approach. I may offer a
counter-suggestion as a step in the slow process of re-thinking our
political infrastructure.
Oh, yes. I'd better mention that I don't have the latest computer
doo-dads. I do all my work in a DOS environment and copy it to Windows
2000 when I go on the internet. There are some 'flash' things that don't
work on my computer.
Am I old-fashioned? Yup. I'm 86. I work in text, learning new
whizz-bangs doesn't appeal to me.
Fred Gohlke
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
--
DISCLAIMER:
Everything I have written above is my personal experience/opinion on
things, no matter what kinds of words i did use(e.g. "always", "never",
"impossible", "waste of time", ....).
Such extreme words only do indicate, that my experience/opinion on
something is very strong and i currently cannot imagine that there are
other possibilities until new arguments/insights/whatever open my eyes that
there are alternative perspectives too :-)Please do not feel discouraged to
challenge my opinion if you have a different one.
Best Regards / Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Alexander Praetorius
Bornemannstrasse 17
D - 60599 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
Germany
*[skype] *alexander.praetorius
*[mail] *citizen@serapath.de alexander.praetorius@serapath.de
*[web] *http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/Benutzer:Serapath
Good Afternoon, Alexander Praetorius
I've reviewed your comments a couple of times and find elements worthy
of note.
It seems to me you stress self-reliance as the cornerstone of democracy
and equate self-reliance to self-employment. Don't we need to recognize
that the opportunities for self-employment are more restricted than they
once were? The old saying, "Go West, young man.", doesn't have the
promise it had years ago. Opening your own sandwich shop is pretty
tough when chains of fast-food joints flood the community.
We may disagree about the importance of self-employment, but we are in
agreement about a basic need of society. You said, the people "... have
to start co-deciding with the people they meet every day and about the
way they want to do business". I would say the people have to start
co-deciding with the people they meet every day and about the way they
want to be governed.
You continue, "... Only if they do that, they will discover and want
more influence in all kinds of aspects of their lives....", and you are
right. You echo the thoughts of Dr. Alasdair MacIntyre, who said that
politics should be "a conception of political activity as one aspect of
the everyday activity of every adult capable of engaging in it". He
went on to say, "Human beings, as the kind of creatures we are, need the
internal goods/goods of excellence that can only be acquired through
participation in politics if we are to flourish. Therefore, everyone
must be allowed to have access to the political decision-making process."
Because of the similarity in your views, you might enjoy The Political
Philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre in The Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, at:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/p/p-macint.htm
Fred Gohlke
On Sun, Jun 28, 2015 at 11:05 PM, Fred Gohlke fredgohlke@verizon.net
wrote:
Good Afternoon, Alexander Praetorius
I've reviewed your comments a couple of times and find elements worthy of
note.
It seems to me you stress self-reliance as the cornerstone of democracy
and equate self-reliance to self-employment. Don't we need to recognize
that the opportunities for self-employment are more restricted than they
once were? The old saying, "Go West, young man.", doesn't have the promise
it had years ago. Opening your own sandwich shop is pretty tough when
chains of fast-food joints flood the community.
Becoming "Self Employed" is as easy as it was NEVER BEFORE.
- self-reliance is not the same as self-employment, but....
While self-reliance is possible as an employee, it's totally passive.
You do as you have been told. You execute goals set by employers. You do
not judge what you have been told to do, you execute and use your skills
and knowledge to do so to the best of your ability and in return you get
paid. Employees do not participate in shaping the world around them based
on their values/morals/philosophies/worldview/... however you might want to
call it. - Self-Employed, not in the sense of freelancers that work like
mercenaries, but Self-employed in the sense of being a small-scale
entrepreneur amongst many many other entrepreneurs have to participate in
shaping reality consciously. They have to think about what kind of business
to pursue. - Being "Self Employed" means, being an active participatory citizen in
the market economy (it's a direct democracy with some unusual rules). Being
an employee or something similar means, delegating your power to your
representative, which is your boss ... which might delegate it even
further... to his boss, and so on...
Another thought to think about:
- Every employee is hired for a certain set of skills to do a certain
amount of work and get paid for it. A big corporation might have a lot of
revenue, but very simplified, this revenue is shared amongst a lot of
employees. Each employee has some colleagues or is part of a team that has
to coordinate itself with other teams, offering some team-specific or
business-unit-specific services to other teams. Why wouldnt that team be
viewed as an agency - and why wouldnt that agency be viewed as self
employed people who work together for the duration of a project and doing
that over and over for many projects - with the possibility that some
members of that "agency" might also work in other "agencies" on some other
projects.
With the help of the internet and the many tools that help people to do
"project management", "time tracking", "invoicing", "business dashboards"
and so on... the administrative overhead becomes so simple, that indeed
everyone can afford to "manage himself" easily.
We may disagree about the importance of self-employment, but we are in
agreement about a basic need of society. You said, the people "... have to
start co-deciding with the people they meet every day and about the way
they want to do business". I would say the people have to start
co-deciding with the people they meet every day and about the way they want
to be governed.
Who are the people met by people every day? Many people work 40h+ every
week and the people they meet are their colleagues at work. In the evening,
many people are exhausted and want to relax and spend time with family and
friends and not talk about politics (as it is perceived as "work"). Certain
Scientists and Politicians might talk about politics and society, but
probably they do so during their working hours and not when they come home
and relax with their kids or families or friends.
*A day has 24 hours. *People might sleep 8 of those hours. They might eat
and shop and clean and go to the toilet and shower and lots of stuff 1-2
hours a day.
They got to work for 8 hours, but they also commute back and forth, so that
might be then 9 h.
Which leaves 5 hours a day for doing whatever they want...
From my experience, those 5 hours are spent with the family or with friends
to relax or doing some sports or other kinds of "consumer activities"
(where they can choose from what is available, which is decided in part by
what they "demand") ... but in part by what is decided by "their bosses"
(because as an employee they do not participate in that process)
You continue, "... Only if they do that, they will discover and want more
influence in all kinds of aspects of their lives....", and you are right.
You echo the thoughts of Dr. Alasdair MacIntyre, who said that politics
should be "a conception of political activity as one aspect of the everyday
activity of every adult capable of engaging in it". He went on to say,
"Human beings, as the kind of creatures we are, need the internal
goods/goods of excellence that can only be acquired through participation
in politics if we are to flourish. Therefore, everyone must be allowed to
have access to the political decision-making process."
Which in practice has to happen at work, so that people can practice this
participation and get some experience and expertise.
When would be the time in which they do that? What kind of luxury is that
activity anyway if it is not integrated in everyone's profession?
Because of the similarity in your views, you might enjoy The Political
Philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre in The Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, at:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/p/p-macint.htm
Fred Gohlke
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
--
DISCLAIMER:
Everything I have written above is my personal experience/opinion on
things, no matter what kinds of words i did use(e.g. "always", "never",
"impossible", "waste of time", ....).
Such extreme words only do indicate, that my experience/opinion on
something is very strong and i currently cannot imagine that there are
other possibilities until new arguments/insights/whatever open my eyes that
there are alternative perspectives too :-)Please do not feel discouraged to
challenge my opinion if you have a different one.
Best Regards / Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Alexander Praetorius
Bornemannstrasse 17
D - 60599 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
Germany
*[skype] *alexander.praetorius
*[mail] *citizen@serapath.de alexander.praetorius@serapath.de
*[web] *http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/Benutzer:Serapath
Good Morning, Alexander Praetorius
re: Becoming "Self Employed" is as easy as it was NEVER BEFORE.
That's interesting. I've had four businesses during my lifetime. I
guess you could say starting them was not real difficult, but keeping
them going was a challenge. I lost that challenge the first two times I
tried. The third business was stable enough that I gave it to our
oldest daughter when the demands of the fourth started to require my
full attention. It's still functioning. I shut the fourth one down
when I was forced out by one of the executives in my only client (i.e.,
one of my bosses). Ah, well, by then it was time to retire, anyway
(although I didn't think so at the time).
These businesses allowed me to maintain my independence, and, with the
blessing of a wife who handled money much better than I - allowed me
(us, actually) to provide for and raise a large family. However, it
wasn't without its problems. I suppose I could list the difficulties,
but that would be boring.
re: While self-reliance is possible as an employee, it's
totally passive. You do as you have been told. You
execute goals set by employers.
When you have a business, you do what your customers tell you to do. In
my business, when a customer told me he wanted a truck to pick up this
afternoon and deliver Thursday, that's what I had to do, My goal was
execute my customer's goals. I doubt that a restaurant is much
different. If a customer wants bacon and eggs, he probably won't accept
pancakes.
re: You do not judge what you have been told to do, you
execute and use your skills and knowledge to do so to
the best of your ability and in return you get paid.
I think that's true - both of employees and small businesses. There are
differences between having a small business and working for someone.
The biggest is the amount of risk you have to accept. We should note
that the more people who depend on you for their existence, the more
difficult it is to put their welfare at risk.
re: With regard to your comments about the difference between
employees and self-employed people shaping reality:
"Employees do not participate in shaping the world around
them based on their values/morals/philosophies/worldview/...
and
"Self-Employed ... in the sense of being a small-scale
entrepreneur amongst many many other entrepreneurs have
to participate in shaping reality consciously.
These ideas are a bit expansive. To the extent that I understand them,
they do not square with my experience. It's true that I met with many
other people because of my business; my customers, their employees, my
competitors and their employees, and a multitude of others ranging from
waitresses to salesmen. Our discussions were dominated by the business
that brought us together. Philosophy and morality might occasionally
come up, but only as they affected some incident or aspect of our
business. The most common alternate topic was sports, There was no
discussion of democracy or politics.
The reason we didn't discuss democracy or politics is because we could
do nothing about them. We could not change anything. Our time was too
precious to waste discussing things we couldn't change.
While I don't think self-employed people are in any better position to
influence the development of democracy than anyone else, there is
extensive work being done, by scholars and others, in the use of
collaboration to achieve democratic results. Participedia
(http://participedia.net), for example, is dedicated to strengthening
democracy through shared knowledge and contains a multitude of examples
of work being done around the world, by all kinds of people.
If we are ever to achieve the kind of collaborative discourse you
envision, the very first and most important feature must be to provide a
way for the discussions to bear fruit, to change things. Absent that,
it will never be anything but talk.
Do you have some experience in making this kind of thing work? Can you
explain the specifics?
Fred Gohlke
On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 5:42 PM, Fred Gohlke fredgohlke@verizon.net wrote:
Good Morning, Alexander Praetorius
re: Becoming "Self Employed" is as easy as it was NEVER BEFORE.
That's interesting. I've had four businesses during my lifetime. I guess
you could say starting them was not real difficult, but keeping them going
was a challenge. I lost that challenge the first two times I tried. The
third business was stable enough that I gave it to our oldest daughter when
the demands of the fourth started to require my full attention. It's still
functioning. I shut the fourth one down when I was forced out by one of
the executives in my only client (i.e., one of my bosses). Ah, well, by
then it was time to retire, anyway (although I didn't think so at the time).
These businesses allowed me to maintain my independence, and, with the
blessing of a wife who handled money much better than I - allowed me (us,
actually) to provide for and raise a large family. However, it wasn't
without its problems. I suppose I could list the difficulties, but that
would be boring.
- What I mean by "Self Employed" is that you have many customers that
pay you little and not a few that pay a lot. (Worst Case: Employed => One
client who pays everything). - The more people become self employed, the easier it is to make
business with others, because with few people self employed, you need to
talk to gate keepers all the time (they decide whether you get a chance to
collaborate with any of the employees in their company)
re: While self-reliance is possible as an employee, it's
totally passive. You do as you have been told. You
execute goals set by employers.
When you have a business, you do what your customers tell you to do. In
my business, when a customer told me he wanted a truck to pick up this
afternoon and deliver Thursday, that's what I had to do, My goal was
execute my customer's goals. I doubt that a restaurant is much different.
If a customer wants bacon and eggs, he probably won't accept pancakes.
Sorry - See Above. When I'm talking about being "self employed", I'm
thinking of being time and location independent and having a lot of
customers with micro payments instead of a few big ones. Because having a
lot of customers gives you a lot of independence, because no single
customer can put you under pressure.
I'm thinking of utilizing the internet heavily.
- I'm currently trying:
- waveapps.com, quickfile.co.uk, smallinvoice.com (as free
accounting/invoicing tools) - waffle.io (as a free project management board)
- github.com (as a free online storage and collaboration platform [ a
social network for professionals ]) - gitter.im (to chat around projects)
- twilio & sipgate (for free telephone number)
- twitter, facebook, google+ & blog/website as my "marketing channels"
- paypal & stripe for integrating payments
- waveapps.com, quickfile.co.uk, smallinvoice.com (as free
- I'm planning to utilize:
- bitcoins or other blockchain based currencies
- API's of lots of service providers that offer "delivery" or
"email2letter" or basically everything i can imagine "as a Service"
I started out as a freelance programmer, switched to running my own agency
and now founded a school to teach kids and people programming.
Next to it I kickstart my own apps. My girlfriend studies political science
and slavic languages and is in her mid thirties.
She started to learn programming and after 2 years she is know also
building her first app (everything by herself - server hosting, design,
online & offline marketing, sales, accounting, .... all self thought)
=> www.zweidesign.co
She never had any contact with natural sciences or anything closer to
programming before - never the less, she made a successful switch that took
her two years - so that proves people do not need to start out as
programmers to becomes successful. We are now trying to explore the "UK
Limited", as it gives you more flexibility than the very bureaucratic
german legal forms of companies.
re: You do not judge what you have been told to do, you
execute and use your skills and knowledge to do so to
the best of your ability and in return you get paid.
I think that's true - both of employees and small businesses. There are
differences between having a small business and working for someone. The
biggest is the amount of risk you have to accept. We should note that the
more people who depend on you for their existence, the more difficult it is
to put their welfare at risk.
Once it works and you have a lot of small customers and a huge network of
partners - the risk decreases dramatically.
Actually all the companies out there that are in business for many decades
are owned by people and I wonder who's risk is higher?
The owners of loosing his business or an employee in his company? If you
are employed, you FOR SURE will be fired or go out of business BEFORE the
company will die.
It's just, if you are new to that mindset and you are "one of the few" who
want to be "on their own" - thus you try that in a culture where there are
not so many people trying that path, then that makes it difficult.
Especially if you come from a background where it's not common to be
"ADULT" (which for me means - actively deciding about what i'm going to do
with whom and where and when). Most successful entrepreneurs are surrounded
by people with similar mindsets or might even come from families and
background where that is common.
It's hard to get into those circles where they help each other out if you
do not have the same cultural or social background.
It will become super simple or at least way easier, if self employment
becomes a mega trend - which i feel it does :-) ...because you have way
more potential partners, that will help you out, because they face similar
problems - and you have way more potential partners that might outsource
part of their work to you - while traditional employees dont outsource
anything. They wait for their "employer parents" to tell them or allow them
to do anything.
re: With regard to your comments about the difference between
employees and self-employed people shaping reality:
"Employees do not participate in shaping the world around
them based on their values/morals/philosophies/worldview/...
and
"Self-Employed ... in the sense of being a small-scale
entrepreneur amongst many many other entrepreneurs have
to participate in shaping reality consciously.
These ideas are a bit expansive. To the extent that I understand them,
they do not square with my experience. It's true that I met with many
other people because of my business; my customers, their employees, my
competitors and their employees, and a multitude of others ranging from
waitresses to salesmen.
As a highly skilled employee - if I don't decide for the most money (what
actually many do) - then at least i can choose my "employer parent". So I
might go around and check all the potential mommies and daddies and what
they at least promise they stand for or do (because they dont really
understand these things anyway) and work for them... ...maybe they build
cars or cellphones or bake cakes or cut peoples hair or act on a stage or
write a newspaper....
... but in their everyday work, they do not see the big picture. Thats not
their job as an "employee" (child). So under which conditions the suppliers
work or which materials are used or to whom service/produces are sold in
order to make happen what? .... its something they do not care about and
have no influence over.
As a self employed - i can choose what kind of impact i want to make, with
whom i want to collaborate, how i want to treat my clients and suppliers,
what values i stand for and many more things. YES... sometimes i might be
forced to serve a client, because i maneuvered myself into a difficult
situation (or i ended up their because of bad luck or coincidence), but at
least in the long run i can steer away from what i dont like.
As a child, i can only choose new parents from the parents that are willing
to accept me and that are available currently on the market. Still, I don't
know a lot about those potential "parents", because most information about
a company is not public and even if it was, who has time to make sense of
it all?
Our discussions were dominated by the business that brought us together.
Philosophy and morality might occasionally come up, but only as they
affected some incident or aspect of our business. The most common
alternate topic was sports, There was no discussion of democracy or
politics.
But what kind of business do I engage in? Which market do I choose? Do I
try to help homeless or poor countries? Do I offer services to mansion
owners? Will i be a salesman for solar panels or weapons? Will I live on
the "bleeding edge" of technology and follow the trends and choose the
things and ways of doing stuff I like the most do inspire my clients and
change their ways of thinking or will I stick to traditional ways of doing
things telling my customers its proven and works making it harder for
others to innovate - maybe even protecting the market by lobbying for weird
regulations?
Everything people do is political - even if they are not aware of it.
Even as a barber or baker i can innovate radically given all the technology
that pops up everywhere these days.
In the US - more and more people can easily work from remote - while in
europe there is a tendency to not support that trend of helping people to
work more from "remote"
The reason we didn't discuss democracy or politics is because we could do
nothing about them. We could not change anything. Our time was too
precious to waste discussing things we couldn't change.
Or maybe you had the wrong business partners? Why not discussing the
philosophy/purpose of the business you were doing?
A "truck driver" has to deliver goods in a certain time under the
conditions he has been told by his boss - the same goes for all his
colleagues.
If those crew of "truck drivers" were all self employed and well connected
with technology, they could improvise in many ways and decide to do things
spontaneously.
I know a truck driver who happens to work more independent and works for a
very alternative and self-aware company, which is actually a network of
many people working together (all of them self employed or forming a small
team of colleagues next to all the others) - they are around 2000 people
delivering 30 million bottles of different drinks a year.
They strongly take care, that no one in their network is underpaying their
suppliers. They give everyone (customers included) the right to vote. They
have all their finances transparent.
They decide their strategies in a consensus way.
The truck drivers - whenever they are on their way - look around and listen
to people and join in the discussion to "report from the front" whats going
on or sometimes suggest to pick up something that wasnt planned (like lots
of empty bottles and boxes that) just because he still had space in his
truck and saw them on his way)
While I don't think self-employed people are in any better position to
influence the development of democracy than anyone else,
I think those people work 40h+ a week and even though my personal business
network currently consists only of around 10-20 people (and we are
brainstorming a lot about how we can change the ways we work and deliver
services to improve the ways the world works), thats also because I only
started to be on my own around a year ago.
This network I was mentioning earlier started around 10 years ago and
because they are so big, they have way more people organized to change
things.
Products & Services created by companies created by entrepreneurs are what
shapes everyday life and how we live. What kind of services we use, what
kind of productes we use - if we communicate with cellphones, drive with
cars, fly with airplanes, shoot with weapons, mount our solar panels, make
our own bread following some youtube video, buying it in a biomarket or
shopping it from a cheap supermarket, packed in some plastic back, made
durable for years.. and whatnot.
Many traditional companies are hated for how they lobby in politics, how
they spend money to corrupt, how they abuse people in third world countries
to work for cheap under horrible conditions, how they pollute the
environment, and the like... ...that are COMPANIES - and the employees -
but the employees just follow orders of their parents.
Parents having the power, because there are no alternatives - so we need to
invite politics in the first place to create all these rules, so that
parents dont do whatever they want.
Or we all try to grow up and just care more about the way we do things
instead of not caring and letting all few powerful company managers and
owners decide how to do stuff, but then we complain at home how horrible
the world is and that we need politicians to fix it.
there is extensive work being done, by scholars and others, in the use of
collaboration to achieve democratic results.
This work should be applied to networks of self employed people and how
they can collaborate. Once I experience all these awesome methods in my
work life (40h+ a week) I start forming an oppinion about them and if I
"pivoted" to try out different methods, I start liking some and disliking
others and I might actually start to understand, that I should push to have
them in politics.
If I dont use them at work to collaborate with my colleagues and solve some
issues we face, ...how the heck will I ever understand that those otherwise
very abstract methods would be something that could help to improve
politics - where all the options i can choose from seem to be crap anyway...
Participedia (http://participedia.net), for example, is dedicated to
strengthening democracy through shared knowledge and contains a multitude
of examples of work being done around the world, by all kinds of people.
I'd love to have them put into tools customized for me and my partners to
actually use them in our business life. If I like them, I will even
advertise them for free amongst people I know and give feedback to the
"inventors". And if one of those tools & methods spreads, maybe chance
increase that they might actually enter traditional politics.
If we are ever to achieve the kind of collaborative discourse you
envision, the very first and most important feature must be to provide a
way for the discussions to bear fruit, to change things. Absent that, it
will never be anything but talk.
true.
Do you have some experience in making this kind of thing work? Can you
explain the specifics?
The bigger network i was talking about is called premium cola" and even
though they have around 2000 people in their business network - they
basically do everything manually using just a mailing list where they talk.
I personally use github and "Pull Requests" that we agree on. So our
"manifesto" for the wizard school gets discussed in the chat and once we
have consensus about any changes to the "manifesto", we accept the "Pull
Requests" after which the new content automatically gets deployed to our
website visible to all our visitors.
--
DISCLAIMER:
Everything I have written above is my personal experience/opinion on
things, no matter what kinds of words i did use(e.g. "always", "never",
"impossible", "waste of time", ....).
Such extreme words only do indicate, that my experience/opinion on
something is very strong and i currently cannot imagine that there are
other possibilities until new arguments/insights/whatever open my eyes that
there are alternative perspectives too :-)Please do not feel discouraged to
challenge my opinion if you have a different one.
Best Regards / Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Alexander Praetorius
Bornemannstrasse 17
D - 60599 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
Germany
*[skype] *alexander.praetorius
*[mail] *citizen@serapath.de alexander.praetorius@serapath.de
*[web] *http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/Benutzer:Serapath
Good Morning, Alexander
You got me!!!
You're talking about entrepreneurs starting business in
technology-related businesses. That's something I'm not qualified to
discuss. However, it raises two comments:
First, while seems to me anyone might take advantage of the
opportunities you describe, I doubt that everyone could.
Second, I don't understand how the kind of operations you describe will
enhance democracy any more than any other kind of activity among humans.
I have not noted any concerted effort to build a bottom-up political
process among such fads as Facebook and Twitter (I subscribe to neither,
but hear a lot about them).
Fred Gohlke
Facebook & Co. are not the solution.
If everyone would start to run their "private life" as if they would run a
business (thus, no consuming, but instead investing into one's own growth)
- that would need everyone to keep records and evaluate on how they are
doing and gives them incentives to collaborate with others and decide what
they want to "create" together ... with this mindset, i start with myself,
and once i'm confident i am in control of my data and performance and can
make decisions in my life like if i would run a "business" (just that i
might optimize for fun or whatever instead of profit), then i can start
collaborating with others to improve life conditions for me and my
community.
The more this becomes a "culture" and the more of my relatives or
aquaintances in general start doing the same, the bigger (strategic?)
issues "we" can take on.
Thats the "bottom-up-process" which only works if people start to get
organized in order to be able to act collaboratively in constructive ways.
If they DONT do that, everything that needs some kind of "orchestration
effort" will always be done by politicians or managers in corporations,
because "private individuals" are not capable of that degree of
orchestration.
On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 5:52 PM, Fred Gohlke fredgohlke@verizon.net wrote:
Good Morning, Alexander
You got me!!!
You're talking about entrepreneurs starting business in technology-related
businesses. That's something I'm not qualified to discuss. However, it
raises two comments:
First, while seems to me anyone might take advantage of the
opportunities you describe, I doubt that everyone could.
Second, I don't understand how the kind of operations you describe will
enhance democracy any more than any other kind of activity among humans. I
have not noted any concerted effort to build a bottom-up political process
among such fads as Facebook and Twitter (I subscribe to neither, but hear a
lot about them).
Fred Gohlke
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
--
DISCLAIMER:
Everything I have written above is my personal experience/opinion on
things, no matter what kinds of words i did use(e.g. "always", "never",
"impossible", "waste of time", ....).
Such extreme words only do indicate, that my experience/opinion on
something is very strong and i currently cannot imagine that there are
other possibilities until new arguments/insights/whatever open my eyes that
there are alternative perspectives too :-)Please do not feel discouraged to
challenge my opinion if you have a different one.
Best Regards / Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Alexander Praetorius
Bornemannstrasse 17
D - 60599 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
Germany
*[skype] *alexander.praetorius
*[mail] *citizen@serapath.de alexander.praetorius@serapath.de
*[web] *http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/Benutzer:Serapath
Good Morning, Alexander
re: Thats the "bottom-up-process" which only works if
people start to get organized in order to be able
to act collaboratively in constructive ways.
Your point that people must "act collaboratively in constructive ways"
is both accurate and vital. The question is how to get them organized
to do that. Your suggestion, "If everyone would start to run their
"private life" as if they would run a business ...", will not happen
because humans are not lemmings. Can we come up with a better approach?
re: ... everything that needs some kind of "orchestration
effort" will always be done by politicians or managers
in corporations, because "private individuals" are not
capable of that degree of orchestration.
That's a good observation. It's close enough to accurate to show why
events like those in Frome, U.K. (that started this discussion) are so
rare. Have you seen the news report of how the people of Frome replaced
all the party politicians in their town council with independents? It
is an inspiring case that shows a community can rally to support a
good idea. You'll find it at:
When you read it, I wonder if you would be good enough to describe any
weak points in what they have accomplished. My concern is how they can
ensure that future candidates for town council will also be independent.
Will IfF not become a party itself? How can that be avoided? How can
the town council update their electoral process to ensure that every
member of the community can participate in the political process to the
full extent of each individual's desire and ability?
Fred Gohlke