Communism. Good or bad. What do you really know about Communism?

[Enrico32]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

Hierarchy is inherent in men.

Indeed, hierarchy is inherent in every social animal-- not just men.

The notion of a "new communist man" -- who behaves in a way that no human being has ever behaved before-- that's a daydream.

Developing political structures based on the premise that that daydream can be real-- that's a nightmare.

I fully agree but the question was about the numerical quantity.

How many people can live under one rule/law?

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by Enrico32

I fully agree but the question was about the numerical quantity.

How many people can live under one rule/law?

On the evidence, millions, perhaps billions.

There are 1.3 billion people in China, and a similar number in India. Their political/legal systems aren't perfect, but with some improvement you could see them functioning adequately.

In general though, men seem to be happier with a hierarchy of power-- a Federal Government, and then State and local governments.

So where I live, there's very little contact with the Federal government on a day to day basis-- unless you work for the Forest Service or the National Laboratory. If I want to put an addition on my house, I deal with my county government. If I want to sue a merchant, I deal with the State Government.

So there's 330 odd million people in the United States
7.5 million people in my State
20,000 people in my county
1,200 people in my "city"

Do you count that as "one rule/law" -- or many?

[Enrico32]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

In general though, men seem to be happier with a hierarchy of power-- a Federal Government, and then State and local governments.

So you agree that there should be a federal.
1) Why
2)How should power be divided between the suggested branches?

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by Enrico32

So you agree that there should be a federal.
1) Why
2)How should power be divided between the suggested branches?

A Federal system has been broadly preferred, especially in bigger nations. It means that the government officials you're dealing with day to day are elected by you. I know my county commissioners personally-- I don't know my Senators personally.

Power should be divided so that no branch or individual dictates-- "checks and balances" is the American shorthand. The typical division is a legislature, an Executive, and a judiciary, with a Constitution setting the rules. A professional and non-partisan civil service is also essential. There's no "one size fits all" solution-- there are a range of things that work well, and others that don't. One thing that never works well is "all power to the people/party/maximum leader"

Thomas Jefferson express the idea of "checks and balances", 250 years ago:

Originally Posted by Thomas Jefferson

“The powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.”
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/found.../v1ch10s9.html

[Enrico32]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

A Federal system has been broadly preferred, especially in bigger nations. It means that the government officials you're dealing with day to day are elected by you.

Oh, I meant the "power division" which we originally discussed, not the executive-judicial-legislative but the fed-state-local.

So, basically, we have 10,000 people in the city A and 10,000 people in the city B. And somehow we need to give A more powers than B, and to both cities less powers than to a certain supra-institution C. How?


Imagine you are one of the 1,000 people on an island left to govern for yourselves. Would you really agree to grant some individuals an exclusive right to rule over you without your direct participation?

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by Enrico32

Oh, I meant the "power division" which we originally discussed, not the executive-judicial-legislative but the fed-state-local.

So, basically, we have 10,000 people in the city A and 10,000 people in the city B. And somehow we need to give A more powers than B, and to both cities less powers than to a certain supra-institution C. How?

Not more powers -- different kinds of powers. The Federal Government can declare war, but it can't approve your building permit. You State Government can send you to jail for murder, but they don't set the speed limits on your streets. Those are very US -specific examples, btw. The way that power devolves from the center to states and counties, boroughs, local councils, cantons, and departments variously considerably between nations such as France, Canada, Switzerland, Germany and so on. The responsibilities of a French prefet of a départment differ and their relationship to Paris are significantly different from that of a US State and Governor and their relationship to Washington, DC.

Interestingly, Britain is probably the most centralized -- apart from devolved "Kingdoms" of Scotland, NI and Wales-- within England, the Westminster Parliament and Whitehall makes a lot of what would be "State level" law and policy in the US -- consider the relationship of the Home Secretary and the Police, for example-- far more centralized to London than police matters are to Washington DC.

Very generally, the smaller the country -- in population and size-- the better central government works. New Zealand is fairly centralized, national government in Wellington, and then local authorities, much less complex entities than, for example, a US or Australian State or a Canadian Province. With just 4 million people, that works fine for NZ, but would never fly in the US. But NZ also has much more complex constitutional arrangements with the indigenous Maori population than the US does with Native Americans or Australians do with Aboriginal Australians -- the Waitangi Tribunal is a distinctively Kiwi constitutional structure.

Originally Posted by Enrico32

Imagine you are one of the 1,000 people on an island left to govern for yourselves. Would you really agree to grant some individuals an exclusive right to rule over you without your direct participation?

No, I don't know how you get there from anything I've said.

The first thing you have are "meta rules" -- rules about how you will make the rules that govern you and who people will be selected to carry out those rules, and how their power would be checked. That's what a Constitution is -- a set of rules about making rules, who makes them, by what process, and what rights are reserved to the people.

Realistically, the smaller the group, the less of this formal rules making there is. If there are twenty of us who've survived the zombie apocalypse, we're not going to set up a court system.

Constitutional arrangements evolve over time, principally out of the resistance of the governed to overreaches by authority. So the English Constitution (and by that route, the American) has its roots in 1215 when the Barons at Runnymede demanded and were guaranteed rights by King John.

Constitutions don't have authority because they're nicely written or good ideas-- they're like national borders; they have authority because they've been fought over for centuries. After a lot of often very bloody trial and error, we've arrived at principles of government which work better than others-- rule of law, vs personal whim, for example.

So if you look at the places in the world that are prosperous and where you might want to live, nearly all of them have strong "rule of law"-- meaning that they've established an independent court and police system, and a citizen has a reasonable expectation of being able to go about his business without arbitrary harassment.

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

Here you make your totalitarianism explicit.

What totalitarianism? I added your fears to write a Constitution that would protect people from totalitarianism. Don't you remember?

Originally Posted by deepsepia

A Federal system has been broadly preferred, especially in bigger nations.

Nations are lies. It's with money one of the first way to divide and manipulate people.

[Wendigo]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

What totalitarianism? I added your fears to write a Constitution that would protect people from totalitarianism. Don't you remember?

And for anyone new to the game of political chess xyz has just played the old let's make an imaginary constitution for an imaginary idealistic marxist state opening gambit.

The crowd gasp in amazement Can deepsepia hope to launch a counter attack after that crushing blow

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

What totalitarianism? I added your fears to write a Constitution that would protect people from totalitarianism. Don't you remember?

As I explained to you previously, you can write whatever you like for your imaginary cloud cuckoo land, with your imaginary people.

On this planet, with real human beings, if you assign the power to regulate every transaction to the Party, you have totalitarianism.

You don't have to take my word for it: the experiment has been tried many times.

You're a big enthusiast for Stalin's 1936 Constitution, as I recall, having failed to notice that having written it, he then went on to murder millions.

And Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge eliminated money, and all private property-- and they murdered roughly a quarter of the population.

Every time a boat of your preferred design puts to sea, it sinks.

Somehow, you're still in love with blueprints . . .

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by Wendigo

And for anyone new to the game of political chess xyz has just played the old let's make an imaginary constitution for an imaginary idealistic marxist state opening gambit.

The crowd gasp in amazement Can deepsepia hope to launch a counter attack after that crushing blow

I totally checkmate all kind of adversities with the "XYZ-Deepsepia" Constitution.
It's a jewel.
It's a mixture between modern Swiss direct democracy and real Communism.

If someone wants to denigrate the "XYZ-Deepsepia" Constitution, it's because he's a hidden dictator.

Originally Posted by deepsepia

As I explained to you previously, you can write whatever you like for your imaginary cloud cuckoo land, with your imaginary people.

Do you mean that cuckoo land has not a better notion of democracy than rodeo land?