The situation of parties and unions is the situation of any strongly centralized structure. Robert Michels wrote a book in 1911, "Political Parties", in which he analyzed how any centralized structure turns into a mafia and called this tendency "the iron law of oligarchy". For their decentralization, the organizational law should specify that decisions must be taken with the approval of the majority of members, their management only having the role of coming up with proposals to solve various problems. The bad part is that the corrupt parties transfer this corruption to the state administration and therefore the whole state will become corrupt
All these issues are ultimately emergent properties of the individual. A society is a collective of individuals and nothing more. It is those individuals characteristics that combine in a multitude of ways and are extremely complex that then manifest in all we have and then it becomes an immensely complex feedback system which starts to shape each individual. You could say that the complex social structures we have today were generate 100's and 1000's of years ago by those individual human characteristics that were emerging. Obviously some are innate but what we have today is essentially the emergence of the essence of psychopathy which is now becoming embedded in the human species. Without constructing a system that works for everyone equally(as a society everyone is suppose to be equal so if you create a society in which some have power over others you actually do not have a society) and is designed to prevent and reduce the psychopathic tendencies then the psychopath will corrupt and take over the system and undermine it and the individuals in it will exist in chaos until it collapses in on itself and turns into something else(almost always worse). Rules of systems produce behaviors and outcomes. The rules of "capitalism" have produced what we have. It is not complex. There are millions of board and card games. Each game has it's own unique set of rules. Each set of rules gives defines what the "game" is and gives rise to usually an infinite number of games. The rules of Capitalism are essentially the most basic and next to the rules of slavery and survival of the greediest. Until we create a system with very clear rules about everything and make sure it produces the game we want to exist in we will be plagued playing these insane games in which some will cheat themselves to win.
Good stuff, Vlad! Well explained, straight to the point. Adding text and images when possible always helps improve the quality of the presentation. It becomes more of an educational show than a audio-only podcast when you add relevant text, images or videos. I'm sure that can be more challenging, but it does help the presentation quality overall. I hope you get more views and subscribers. Maybe an interview with another fairly popular anti-cap, progressive channel on YT would help? Moreover, educating and organizing for the public is still really important. I was inspired when I just found out there is a People's Platform in Europe being organized for February in Vienna. Take a look. It would be really something if that could happen for North America. Because we have SO MANY good organizations and people that are speaking the same sort of vision but we are just a little disconnected and we need to get on the same page. One conference could do just that.
I did some interviews on my channel. I have also reached out to means.tv/ but they have not replied. For now, I'd like to focus on essays rather than interviews. There's already a lot of people doing interviews. My aim is to clarify complicated concepts, talk straight, and be as practical as I can. Conferences also have their limitations: they do not engage regular citizens and tend to be captured by jargon. For that reason I wrote this proposal degrowth.info/en/blog/degrowthers-of-the-world-unite-a-proposal-for-degrowth-academics-activists-practitioners-to-join-forces-as-equals which has sparked some engagement. There is a group at degrowth.net/ that wants to turn the proposal into reality.
@@VladBunea Thanks for sharing your thoughts and those references. I checked out the proposal you wrote. Generally, I agree, especially about the last point trying to get paid activists in communities sharing, learning, teaching, and building bottom-up community networks to push governments to act, ruling class to back down and bring a post-capitalist society that supports all. I don't think the Solidarity Fund suggestion of 100% of income over $100,000 is going to get a lot of play. I fully support a minimum and maximum wage and can't wait for a 100% of income over 1 billion to be taxed and redistributed and then moving swiftly down to to 100 millionaires and so on down the chain. But in a still mostly capitalist-controlled world where we don't yet know if/when cost of living is going down, asking people making over $100,000 to put 100% to a solidarity fund is just not going to get much play, sorry. I don't qualify for that, so it's not even me being 'selfish' it is just the recognition that the 'ask' doesn't match the reality on the ground for most people and the security they'd need in order to commit that. So, we need to work on the local basic goods and services abundance network and working class strategic direction engagement. Because I'm sure you've noticed strikes popping up all over in the last number of years. The problem I have is that I wish I could get to them, and inform a more strategic way to strike. Especially the key sectors that keep capitalism 'going' like transportation and retail chain stores. If you want to talk more about this, let me know if it is okay to e-mail you.
I love this conversation. Not just income but also wealth should be capped. My favourite maximum limit for wealth should be about $10 million. Once we have caps like that, prices will be deflated and living would quickly become significantly more affordable for the 99% of people (it was already affordable for the top 1%). In addition to this, I advocate for universal basic services to be also free (all healthcare, all education, public transportation etc). Housing should be a human right, not a for profit market, and so much more. There is an entire package of policies for the people that needs to be implemented simultaneously.
@@VladBunea yes, very good to mention that wealth cap must come with Universal Basic Services, like in the Real Green New Deal by the US Green Party led by Jill Stein right now and a Global Green New Deal would be something to educate the public on the need for advocating for it and why we need to stand up to the commodification of living for the profit of the few. It’s sick at this point the “cost of living” and we need to stop the madness. But we need to build the education and alternative in a bottom-up way that can rapidly catch on. That’s what I want to add to the strategic conversation. A viable way forward, which I humbly believe would work, if enough get involved. Lots of stuff needs to happen concurrently and we are not sure which peg will drop into place but we should be prepared for it. Two main points: 1) Building a robust localized mutual aid network and tool sharing and repairing libraries is one key. 2) Not for Profit Worker Cooperatives to be established in each community, can be a series of sectors under the same umbrella like Mondragon in Spain. But powerful use of Co-Op Member volunteer team can be a game changer. Keep minimum volunteer expectation to 3 hours per week for same free benefits to all Members who meet that requirement. Does this make sense? I’ll likely elaborate on this more later.
the simple fact is that capitalism rewards the worst evil humans can do, and as Vlad points out, those who want greater access to capital, power and property are willing to do evil to get them...I believe if the necessisites of life were provided so that each human can live their own best life, we'd pretty much see a lot less of evil behaviour.
The Death of Stalin. I just watched that movie a couple of days ago!!!!! That movie was NOT funny in the least. It claimed to be funny. It was a historical drama.
Good essay
The situation of parties and unions is the situation of any strongly centralized structure. Robert Michels wrote a book in 1911, "Political Parties", in which he analyzed how any centralized structure turns into a mafia and called this tendency "the iron law of oligarchy". For their decentralization, the organizational law should specify that decisions must be taken with the approval of the majority of members, their management only having the role of coming up with proposals to solve various problems.
The bad part is that the corrupt parties transfer this corruption to the state administration and therefore the whole state will become corrupt
Get that 10k exposure!
That last bit from the Cossacks made me spit out my food laughing.
Haha! I’m glad someone is reading those production cards.
Great!
great video, thanks for making this
All these issues are ultimately emergent properties of the individual. A society is a collective of individuals and nothing more. It is those individuals characteristics that combine in a multitude of ways and are extremely complex that then manifest in all we have and then it becomes an immensely complex feedback system which starts to shape each individual. You could say that the complex social structures we have today were generate 100's and 1000's of years ago by those individual human characteristics that were emerging. Obviously some are innate but what we have today is essentially the emergence of the essence of psychopathy which is now becoming embedded in the human species.
Without constructing a system that works for everyone equally(as a society everyone is suppose to be equal so if you create a society in which some have power over others you actually do not have a society) and is designed to prevent and reduce the psychopathic tendencies then the psychopath will corrupt and take over the system and undermine it and the individuals in it will exist in chaos until it collapses in on itself and turns into something else(almost always worse).
Rules of systems produce behaviors and outcomes. The rules of "capitalism" have produced what we have. It is not complex. There are millions of board and card games. Each game has it's own unique set of rules. Each set of rules gives defines what the "game" is and gives rise to usually an infinite number of games. The rules of Capitalism are essentially the most basic and next to the rules of slavery and survival of the greediest. Until we create a system with very clear rules about everything and make sure it produces the game we want to exist in we will be plagued playing these insane games in which some will cheat themselves to win.
Algo boost!
Good stuff, Vlad! Well explained, straight to the point. Adding text and images when possible always helps improve the quality of the presentation. It becomes more of an educational show than a audio-only podcast when you add relevant text, images or videos. I'm sure that can be more challenging, but it does help the presentation quality overall.
I hope you get more views and subscribers. Maybe an interview with another fairly popular anti-cap, progressive channel on YT would help?
Moreover, educating and organizing for the public is still really important. I was inspired when I just found out there is a People's Platform in Europe being organized for February in Vienna. Take a look. It would be really something if that could happen for North America. Because we have SO MANY good organizations and people that are speaking the same sort of vision but we are just a little disconnected and we need to get on the same page. One conference could do just that.
I did some interviews on my channel. I have also reached out to means.tv/ but they have not replied. For now, I'd like to focus on essays rather than interviews. There's already a lot of people doing interviews. My aim is to clarify complicated concepts, talk straight, and be as practical as I can. Conferences also have their limitations: they do not engage regular citizens and tend to be captured by jargon. For that reason I wrote this proposal degrowth.info/en/blog/degrowthers-of-the-world-unite-a-proposal-for-degrowth-academics-activists-practitioners-to-join-forces-as-equals which has sparked some engagement. There is a group at degrowth.net/ that wants to turn the proposal into reality.
@@VladBunea Thanks for sharing your thoughts and those references. I checked out the proposal you wrote. Generally, I agree, especially about the last point trying to get paid activists in communities sharing, learning, teaching, and building bottom-up community networks to push governments to act, ruling class to back down and bring a post-capitalist society that supports all.
I don't think the Solidarity Fund suggestion of 100% of income over $100,000 is going to get a lot of play. I fully support a minimum and maximum wage and can't wait for a 100% of income over 1 billion to be taxed and redistributed and then moving swiftly down to to 100 millionaires and so on down the chain. But in a still mostly capitalist-controlled world where we don't yet know if/when cost of living is going down, asking people making over $100,000 to put 100% to a solidarity fund is just not going to get much play, sorry. I don't qualify for that, so it's not even me being 'selfish' it is just the recognition that the 'ask' doesn't match the reality on the ground for most people and the security they'd need in order to commit that.
So, we need to work on the local basic goods and services abundance network and working class strategic direction engagement. Because I'm sure you've noticed strikes popping up all over in the last number of years. The problem I have is that I wish I could get to them, and inform a more strategic way to strike. Especially the key sectors that keep capitalism 'going' like transportation and retail chain stores. If you want to talk more about this, let me know if it is okay to e-mail you.
I love this conversation. Not just income but also wealth should be capped. My favourite maximum limit for wealth should be about $10 million. Once we have caps like that, prices will be deflated and living would quickly become significantly more affordable for the 99% of people (it was already affordable for the top 1%). In addition to this, I advocate for universal basic services to be also free (all healthcare, all education, public transportation etc). Housing should be a human right, not a for profit market, and so much more. There is an entire package of policies for the people that needs to be implemented simultaneously.
You can write here or by email, whichever you prefer. Imo here would be better so others could participate in the discussion.
@@VladBunea yes, very good to mention that wealth cap must come with Universal Basic Services, like in the Real Green New Deal by the US Green Party led by Jill Stein right now and a Global Green New Deal would be something to educate the public on the need for advocating for it and why we need to stand up to the commodification of living for the profit of the few. It’s sick at this point the “cost of living” and we need to stop the madness.
But we need to build the education and alternative in a bottom-up way that can rapidly catch on. That’s what I want to add to the strategic conversation. A viable way forward, which I humbly believe would work, if enough get involved.
Lots of stuff needs to happen concurrently and we are not sure which peg will drop into place but we should be prepared for it.
Two main points:
1) Building a robust localized mutual aid network and tool sharing and repairing libraries is one key.
2) Not for Profit Worker Cooperatives to be established in each community, can be a series of sectors under the same umbrella like Mondragon in Spain.
But powerful use of Co-Op Member volunteer team can be a game changer. Keep minimum volunteer expectation to 3 hours per week for same free benefits to all Members who meet that requirement.
Does this make sense? I’ll likely elaborate on this more later.
❤
ilemme just sycophanti to the almighty algorithm...
the simple fact is that capitalism rewards the worst evil humans can do, and as Vlad points out, those who want greater access to capital, power and property are willing to do evil to get them...I believe if the necessisites of life were provided so that each human can live their own best life, we'd pretty much see a lot less of evil behaviour.
The Death of Stalin. I just watched that movie a couple of days ago!!!!! That movie was NOT funny in the least. It claimed to be funny. It was a historical drama.