: I myself have had some ideas for alternative systems
: (invariably reverting to decentralised governance,
: some of which could be described as anarchic to
: extents), but I'm not sure if they would work on a
: national scale. Maybe that's the way?
I myself have come to the conclusion, as mentioned in the Good vs Evil thread(s), that balance is the key to everything. Socialism is good, but then so is capitalism, and both of them have major problems, but what other solutions are there? A mix of the two, as most nations are realizing now.
Decentralization has its benefits and its problems, as does centralization. The solution I like to use is fractalization. The lowest-level governments, townsheds or whatever, are run completely democratically, electing among their ranks a representative to the city council. The council then elects from their ranks a president, whose job it is both to maintain order in council dealings, and to be the representative to the county council. The county level works likewise, on up to larger regional level (about the size of California+Nevada, Texas, or some European nations like France, Spain, Germany and the UK), the continental level, and so on. However many layers are needed to ensure that each council is of a large but still managable size.
The purpose of each level is basically to govern the levels immediately below it. Continental councils manage interregional affairs, regional councils manage intercounty affairs, counties manage intercity affairs, and cities manage intertown affairs. Towns, of course, manage the direct interpersonal affairs of the people within them.
As far as laws go, all of them start on the democratic level. Have a cool idea about how people probably shouldn't be allowed to kill eachother? Bring it to a vote at the next meeting at Town Hall. If it passes, ask your rep to bring it up at the City Council meeting. The council members will then bring it up at THEIR Town Hall meetings, and bring the results of the votes back to the City Council: if most of the towns vote the law into place, then the whole city passes the law and the towns that didn't vote for it, well, they have to follow it anyway. (Though there's always a vote to appeal, if you think you can convince people to unvote their law). If most of the towns don't vote for it, then only those that did vote for it have that law; it's not 'unvoted' from them because the City didn't approve. The city council can then bring it up to the county and so on; the really good laws get all the way up to the top and become universal laws.
The 'constitution' I have in mind, the basic right and proceedings of the legal system (as differentated from the electoral/voting system above), is very short and sweet and could fit on one 8x11 sheet of paper and be posted on every street corner. I'll post it here so I don't have to retype it. These are basically like the parlimentary "Robert's Rules of Order": they're the rules that each level of council uses to resolve conflicts between those that they represent. Since on the lowest level everybody is a member of their town's government, these are also the basic rules for interpersonal conflict resolution. The "police" would likely just be a bunch of folks paid to go around and make sure people are using these rules to resolve their conflicts. Anyway:
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All beings posessing the ability to express their will (hereafter reffered to as "People") also possess the inherant right to express and act upon that will, unless objected to by another Person or a party of People (hereafter reffered to as a "Party").
Beings presently incapable of expressing will but showing the potential to do so (hereafter reffered to as "Potentials") are required to be cared for and nurtured by the People in whose custody they currently stand (herafter reffered to as "Custodians"). Custodians shall be wholly responsible for the actions and wellbeing of their Potentials, and the Potentials shall be held to the law of their Custodians inasmuch as that law does not infringe on their wellbeing. This arrangement shall continue until such time as the Custodian arranges transferrance of custody to another Person, at which time time all responsibility for the actions and wellbeing is transferred as well; or the Potenials demonstrate the capability of will, at which time the Potentials shall be considered People.
In the event that the expressions or actions of one or more People or Parties are objected to by one or more other People or Parties (hereafter reffered to as an "Issue"), both the People or Parties involved in the expression or actions and the People or Parties involved in the objections (hereafter reffered to as "Involved Parties") shall be required to confer on the Issue.
In the event that one or more Involved Parties wish to involve other People or Parties not presently involved, both the uninvolved People or Parties and the majority of Involved Parties must agree to involve the uninvolved People or Parties, else the uninvolved Beings or Parties shall remain uninvolved.
A conferance of Involved Parties regarding an Issue shall continue until a contract resolving the issue (hereafter reffered to as a "Contract") is recorded and agreed upon by the majority of Involved Parties.
A Contract shall record the Issue (including but not limited to the actions or expressions comitted, and the objections to the actions or expressions comitted), the proceedings of the conferance of Involved Parties regarding the Issue, the actions required by the majority of Involved Parties for each Involved Party, and which People or Parties shall enforce the actions required by the majority of Involved Parties for each Involved Party.
The actions required by the majority of Involved Parties for each Involved Party in a conferance of Involved Parties regarding an Issue shall not be infringed upon unless required in a later Contract.
In the event that a Contract requires infringement upon another Contract, the Involved Parties of the former Contract shall immediately and indisputably become Involved Parties in the latter Contract.
In the event that a Being or Party infringes upon the requirements of a Contract, the infringement shall become an Issue, with the authors of the original Contract as the objectors, and all Involved Parties of the original Contract, in addition to any other Involved Parties of the infringement, shall confer until a Contract regarding the Issue of the infringements upon the requirements of the original Contract is recorded.
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On top of all this, I've also got an economic system designed which I call "semisocialism"(the voting system I call Fractal Republicanism, and the legal system is Homarchy), based around a very simple tax form which eliminates the need for specialized socialized systems of medicine, school, etc, while retaining the motivations of capitalism. Basically, every entity (person/corporation, town, city, county, and so on) takes their net profits plus any gifts received and subtracts their operating expenses plus any gifts given, and submits that figure (and all the math leading up to it) to the next level up of government. The govt then divides all these figures by (two divided by the percent of full-time worked by that individual, so as work approaches 0 involvement in the system also approaches 0%) and adds the results, and accounts that figure into their net profits, and submits it to the next level up, and so on.
When it reaches the top, the results are again divided by (two/%worked), and this time averaged, and the original figures for the constituant entities subtracted from the resulting figure. That's how much the consituant entity is entitled (if the result is positive), or owes (if negative). Each consituant on that lower level then takes it's returned figure and divides it amongst its constituants and again subtracts it's constituants' original figures, and that's the amount that THOSE constituants are entitled or owe; and so on down to the individual level.
This way the rich ARE made to help support the poor (of course, if they just give a lot to the poor themselves they won't be MADE to help as much via taxes, because their figure will be smaller), but not in a completely socialistic way, and fractally. That way you don't totally eliminate the capitalistic drive, because you can STILL be the richest man in the system; you're just limited as to how much MORE rich than the poorest person you can be, because the higher above middle-class you get, the harder it is to make insanely huge net profits after taxes.
It also means you can't have loafers sitting around not working and leeching off the system, because percent of involvement is dependant on amount worked (I count schooling as work, BTW), so if you're working full-time you'll never be less than what we currently call lower middle class, but if you sit on your ass (and aren't independantly wealthy) you'll make nothing and won't get any support from the tax system either, so you'll starve to death. (Disabled people count as full time workers, just to be fair to the crippled, and unemployed job-seekers actively looking for work count as half-time).
The net result is basically just to shrink the economic classes: "filthy stinking rich" is tempered to "upper middle class", and "filthy stinking hobo" is tempered to "lower middle class". Since, even at lower middle class levels, everyone can afford basic education, medical care, and so on (all of them completely privatized businesses), you're going to have a lot more healthy, well-educated, highly productive people, so the whole system will get more wealthy.
So, uh... stick that in your pipe and smoke it, eh?
