All Posts Tagged With: "role of government"

New column up here: “Paper, Plastic, and the Mockery of Progress: San Francisco steps in right direction.”

Here’s an interesting one for your consideration: San Francisco is about to ban plastic grocery bags, which will end up saving 450,000 gallons of oil a year. Thoughts?

Like everything in my mind, individualism is a spectrum with extremes on either end and I’m pretty specifically speaking to an almost distinctively American hyper individualism where each individual makes all their own choices and can do anything should they so choose. The individual as this free-floating island unto himself is rather silly. Granted, we all have different life experiences: born to unique households, have singular experiences, and have our own collection of positions and opinions. In a sense, yes we are “individuals,” but in a sense we aren’t. We’re part of the mass, the superego, the collective, the community.

What makes each of us “individuals” is the very fact that we are embedded within certain communities and have experiences as a result of our membership in said communities. The opportunities we have in life are dependent to a certain extent upon the communities we belong to (I say communities because we belong to many – family, neighborhood, country, social group, school, etc). Everything we are, all of our quirks, kinks, and opinions are shaped by all of these things we have no control over. We can’t control who our parents are, whether we are rich or poor, whether we live in the ghetto or the ‘burbs. These things all shape our attitudes, opinions, and worldviews and we have absolutely no control over them. We have control over how we react to situations, but even our responses are conditioned to a certain extent by our upbringing and context. Not only is the way we react shaped by these things, but the things we can possibly react to are largely determined by them too (ie I can’t be awkward at a country club if no one I know has ever even been in one).

Having so little control over so many of the factors that influence if not determine who we are, it strikes me as rather odd that we trumpet the horn of individual autonomy, particularly as separation from the state. All of the above-mentioned factors that shape us are to a greater or lesser extent influenced by the state whether it be past or present. Where we live for instance (and the character of that area) is socio-economic, but also has a good deal to do with how the government reacted toward the generation of your ancestors who immigrated here (whether they had an easy path to citizenship, or whether they got it at all for instance). It’s also shaped by things as simple as zoning laws, and where and how the federal/state/local government decides to spend its money. Whether it be, for instance, on roads, or rail, on large lots, or small, etc.

The state has for centuries favored certain groups be it by race, gender, class, ethnicity, language, religion, or just plain politics. We live in a society of concentrated wealth which tends to correlate rather strongly with which intersections of these groups we find ourselves and while the state is not the only factor affecting them, it is certainly a significant one. Many of us take our positions for granted and note how we (or our ancestors) took advantage of the opportunities presented to them. For the most part we’re lucky. If we think of opportunities for social and economic mobility like we think about economics there’s the obvious basic problem of scarcity – there is never enough of X (opportunity) for everyone and there is strong competition for what exists. Viewing opportunity in this light, I am often troubled to hear others blaming poverty on . . . well the poor.

In a world of finite opportunities and economic stratification, poverty seems inevitable. It strikes me as rather odd that we should demand that those who have not been so fortunate as ourselves pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and take care of themselves when the majority of us who are in a (better) position to do so had a good deal of help along the way. Our help came from the Montgomery G.I. Bill, Federal grant money, cheap public universities, huge postwar economic booms, a rapidly expanding housing market, and on and on. All of it buttressed by government spending.

When I hear others speak disparagingly about the less fortunate – lazy, stupid, undeserving – I always find myself thinking “but where would you be without the help and privileges you’ve had?” I tend to see this as a problem obviously. Some would argue that we should eliminate all state assistance to everyone. I’d say that’s patently unfair because we’ve already acted to grant access to opportunities and built wealth for so many that pulling all assistance would leave those who have not been so fortunate without even the limited opportunities those better off had. It would further stratify our society economically and economic stratification tends to lead to riots, revolts, and revolutions. Actually I advocate for more robust programs such as job training for low income people, increased grant money for universities, increased spending on K-12 education, more robust and continuing teacher training, and increased parental involvement in education. This would open up more opportunities for everyone because greater opportunity means a better educated, more competitive workforce and a more peaceful (read nonviolent) and ultimately more satisfied populace. The ultimate goal being that more of us are able to earn a decent, living wage and be less prone to economic shocks and the deprivation and insecurity that comes with poverty.

As similar as we are we struggle desperately to find minute differences upon which we can “other” people, but in the end we’re in this together. Project humanity will succeed or fail based on our decisions. I’d rather see success personally and success in my mind requires a de-emphasized individualism that recognizes that each of us doing what is best only for us without taking into account how that will affect everyone else will ultimately lead to failure.

The far north suburban village of Fox Lake neighbors my hometown of McHenry; they’re both about an hour and a half northwest of Chicago. For those who live in this region, there is an informal hierarchy establishing the trashiest towns in the area. McHenry, I’m afraid, is pretty high up in the rankings. In most people’s eyes, however, Fox Lake takes the top prize.

I bring it up because the Tribune reports today (sorry, subscription required) on Fox Lake’s refusal to enact a smoking ban, bucking a trend followed by several nearby towns. Smoking bans have been debated ad nauseum, and I don’t want to start one up here (regular readers will assume correctly that I favor them and that certain other contributors to Urbanagora vehemently oppose them), but I did want to highlight this quote from Fox Lake citizen and barbershop owner Ron Swanson that made me chuckle:

That’s what this town is all about–drinking and smoking and pizza and hamburgers…and I think it should stay this way.

Am I being a liberal elitist for laughing at this man? Yes. Will this post provoke comments haranguing me for my snobbery? I wouldn’t doubt it. Nevertheless: hahahahahaha!

~By Tom (Tet)

I figure that now is as good a time as any to do my article on my past experience with the various forms of small-C communism, anarchy and off-the-grid living. I was, as some of you know, one of the hippies back so very long ago. I watched experiments in social structures ranging from an alternative City Council in Champaign-Urbana to Stephen Gaskin’s Farm in Tennessee. Virtually all of the ones I knew are gone now, major failures. Even Gaskin’s Farm stopped being Communistic in 1983, switching to a system where each family was expected to support itself with its own income.

I’ve lived in a multi-adult household during the early period, as well as a successful 5-10 person city block/purchased house group during the last decade. Why have the ones I’ve been part of been successful while others have failed? There are various reasons that I’ll cover in the rest of this article.

Reason #1:

Hierarchy and Coercion.

Celine’s Second Law states that Communication is Only Possible Between Equals. This means that success in social interactions only occurs when there is no coercion on either side. Two of the mistakes made by unsuccessful communes were due to this principle being ignored. There is first of all the despot/guru model where the spiritual leader makes the rules with or without input from the populace. The most extreme example of this type, of course, was Charles Manson’s Family. A number of the surviving communes still have this structure.

The opposite extreme was the democratic model where major terms of discussion were put to a vote. These deteriorated rapidly, since the unity was quickly broken down into power blocs and cliques, sort of like 7th Grade School elections. Almost all of these communes are gone now. (If anyone knows of any that are still operating at this time, let me know, I’d love to study why.)

The successful communes I have seen have worked on a veto principle that resembles neither of the above. In order for anything controversial to happen, there has to be a unanimous consent between all of the members. In this case, since the entire membership has agreed on the item on the agenda, no one can feel that their input has been overridden. This also has a tendency to reduce the amount of risk-taking actions, since one or more members would have the good sense to realize that the risk is too high for the action. It also encourages compromise, since in order to get part of what you want, you have to be willing to give up some things you desire to get the cooperation of other people. This veto power, however, seriously limits the number of people in a working commune, since if you get too high a number, essential changes cannot be made in time to evolve to meet crises.

Reason #2:

Inappropriate Economics for Size

I’ve been trying to find the approximate cut-off point for true Communism for some time–you know, “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.” My guess is that it’s about 13.

Why does this occur? My theory is this: It has something to do with the Pareto Principle (the 80-20 rule.) I learned about this in Quality Control Engineering when we found out that 20% of the workers made 80% of the mistakes. A different 20% of the workers were responsible for 80% of the profit of the company.

How does this apply to commune living? The “from each…” formula only works if people have approximately equal amounts of both assets and liabilities. It is easy to select for this *if* the number of people in the commune are small enough that the statistics of small numbers are in operation. If you get large, suddenly 20% of the population is resentful, since their contribution is essential, but they’re working all of the time. At the same time, 80% of the money/materials that they make is going to support the needs of 20% of the communal population (who are, most likely, completely different people.)

This resentment eventually destroys the commune, and occurs time after time. This is why true Communism or Socialism WILL NOT WORK IN REAL LIFE WITHOUT COERCION, and inevitably leads to a loss of freedom.

Reason #3:

Failure to deal with the rest of the world adequately.

I can best illustrate this with an example. Back around 1974, there was an alternative City Council (called the Community Council) with representatives from all of the “hippie businesses” and business collectives at that time. [There were dozens in this town, ranging from a gas station to a dressmaking collective to a restaurant. The only remainders of this period still extant are Good Vibes, Strawberry Fields and People's Performance Automotive--the rest collapsed, usually noisily and involving lawsuits.]

I was on this Council, along with my wife at the time. At one point, the Twin Cities offered us the opportunity to play Softball in the City League against teams fielded by the “straight” businesses.

Simple, right? Nope. Didn’t happen.

The people within the communes refused to deal with playing SOFTBALL with the rest of the city because a) THEY KEPT SCORE, and teams should not be fielded with the idea of competiton, but merely for the enjoyment of the play and b) THEY USED RULES.

Need I say more? Billy Joe, I can sense you staring at me in disbelief. It really happened, I swear to God.

Reason #4:

Lack of a common belief system

Any government that wishes to rule without coercion cannot depend on a police force or an army to control civil order. The populace itself has to be primarily virtuous and in agreement with the social contract. The same is true of a commune. The successful ones consistently were picky, taking only those who were willing to commit to a social contract that ensured that the good of everyone was the top priority.

All it takes is one criminal or exploiter within a non-coercive social group in order for it to collapse. Human nature being what it is, those that were good judges of human nature lasted, those who were not, died.

Hopefully, this sheds some light on remarks that I’ve made in the past about freedom and social structure and alternative living. For those who are curious about the 60s and 70s, I hope that it also gives you the reasons (besides “hippies were stupid and stoned”) that the social experiments during that period failed and showed some of the things that could be learned from them.

~By Tom (Tet)