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[Angle]

I think that a decentralized system in which a number of organization each work to do some task in society. The principle difference between this and capitalism is a cultural one. In this system, insatiable greed is not held up as the most holy of motivations! It is not respected, it is not rewarded, it is not encouraged! Seeking to do something well for yourself and your fellow human beings, seeking to be  a good person, a competent person, seeking to make a pleasant world for yourself and your fellows is what is respected, rewarded, and encouraged! This is whats wrong with America and a significant chunk of the world. We respect people who make money, who exercise power. We reward them for their efforts, we tell children, "Look at that guy! You should try and be that guy!" And so they do. And we wonder why things are so fucked up.

So how do we accomplish this? It's simple. We need a counterculture. Not the idiot hippy "I'ma drop acid hope everything works out" counterculture, a counterculture of "I'ma clean this shit up!". We need to band together, and assert that things should be different. More importantly, we need to demonstrate how things should be different. We start establishing our small organizations, and we work to make the world work. Not to rob it for every penny we can.

[Angle]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You could impose a system in which any corporation caught violating transparency, anti-corruption, or regulation laws has 10% of it's annual income taken by the government that year. And this percentage is cumulative, up to and including 100% profit loss.

I think corporations would probably clean up their acts very fast in light of that.

But you still have to be able to be able to actually stick an accusation to them. And don't forget, what's keeping them from simply "persuading" some congressmen to change the laws?

Okay, you're right, we shouldn't try to do anything against the omniscient corporate overlords. My bad.

Preventing them from persuading congress to change the laws is the whole objective of Occupy. To make the displeasure of the public known loud and clear. Congressmen are, without any exception that I can see, greedy and corrupt beyond any hope of recovery. But they aren't stupid. They want to be reelected more than anything else, and being reelected relies upon keeping the public happy.

The public is not happy, and I say we need to be more unhappy. Only when there are millions in the streets demanding justice will Congress get the message that they are not being believed or trusted by anyone anymore.

My point was not that we should give up and go home. My point was that this is the only possible outcome of capitalism. This is the only way it can end. Any efforts to balance it out are wasted. We need a different system.

[scriver]

Ah, all right. So you want a culture change, then, rather than a new economic system? I agree with that.

[Angle]

This culture change will necesitate a new economic system, and very probably a new political one. But eh, one thing at a time.

[Montague]

Where would you draw the line between greed and ambition?

Seems to me, everyone is greedy to some extent or another, everyone wants what they want and are willing to do whatever to get what they want. People's ambitions might differ, though. Some people don't want much and don't need to do much to obtain them. Some people want everything and yet are unwilling to do much to get them. Some want everything and will do anything to get them.

Ultimately, it seems to me that removing greed from society would be altering human nature, or at least putting the jackboot down hard enough to keep people from aquiring too much if they want "too much".

[Angle]

Greed is wanting to have everything. Most people really aren't driven by greed that much, they're driven by social pressures. they want to be respected. The problem here is that some of the things we hand out respect for really don't deserve respect.

Ambition is wanting to do something. Ambition is mostly harmless, in my opinion. If someone's ambition is dangerous or undesirable, then that's a problam, but for the most part I doubt we need to worry about it.

Also, I forgot to mention something important in my little speech at the top of the page there, I'll type it up, hold on a sec.

[Phmcw]

The human is what it is : whatever your system is, it must be taken into account.
The main failure of communism and ultra liberalism is the same : their starting point is in complete contradiction with human nature : "we can create a new human devoid of greed" for communism and " Human are able to take decision in a perfectly informed way". Both are false, both system fail.

So careful with your cultural change : is it even possible/sustainable?

[scriver]

This culture change will necesitate a new economic system, and very probably a new political one. But eh, one thing at a time.

I don't think so. A change in mindset away from money being the only thing that matters would pretty much cause capitalism to function like it's supposed to without breaking itself down.

[Angle]

This culture change will necesitate a new economic system, and very probably a new political one. But eh, one thing at a time.

I don't think so. A change in mindset away from money being the only thing that matters would pretty much cause capitalism to function like it's supposed to without breaking itself down.

The changes that result from such a mindset are enough to qualify it as a new system. For example, is capitalism still capitalism without corporate takeovers? I think not.

[Angle]

The human is what it is : whatever your system is, it must be taken into account.
The main failure of communism and ultra liberalism is the same : their starting point is in complete contradiction with human nature : "we can create a new human devoid of greed" for communism and " Human are able to take decision in a perfectly informed way". Both are false, both system fail.

So careful with your cultural change : is it even possible/sustainable?

That is a good point. I' would hate to drive us all headlong off a cliff.

As such, another thing I think is important is that we recognize the value of argument, discussion, and free speech. All too often, You'll see an "argument" that consists entirely of "does too!" "does not!" "does too!" "does not!", especially in politics. This needs to go. We need to actually talk about things and discuss them. Skepticism and "proof in the pudding" should be major parts of such a society. That's why I want a gradual change instead of some overnight revolution. It'll give us time to find flaws with with such a system and create solutions. And if it doesn't work out, we can always revert to capitalism.

Edit - oh dammit double posts. There should be a feature that when you double post, it just adds the second post on the end of the first. Make things so much easier.

[Truean]

Sarbanes-Oxley directly throws the top executives in jail if there are accounting irregularities and requires the executive to sign off on every report. There is NO excuse. If the report is wrong, then jail. Corporations are pissed about this because they have to hire accountants and attorneys to make good and sure they don't directly lie on statements like this or it's the executives themself in jail without defense.... This is the result of Enron....

You can impose criminal liability directly on directors and executives....

But how long until they find a way around it? or have it repealed? or find a new way to screw things up?
[/quote]


Nothing is foolproof. Vigilance is the price of freedom. You watch for ways they try  to get around it and then address them as they come up. Yes it's an arms race but that's how criminal law works, anywhere.

[Angle]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sarbanes-Oxley directly throws the top executives in jail if there are accounting irregularities and requires the executive to sign off on every report. There is NO excuse. If the report is wrong, then jail. Corporations are pissed about this because they have to hire accountants and attorneys to make good and sure they don't directly lie on statements like this or it's the executives themself in jail without defense.... This is the result of Enron....

You can impose criminal liability directly on directors and executives....

But how long until they find a way around it? or have it repealed? or find a new way to screw things up?

Nothing is foolproof. Vigilance is the price of freedom. You watch for ways they try  to get around it and then address them as they come up. Yes it's an arms race but that's how criminal law works, anywhere.
[/quote]

That's a good point. I'm hoping I can help make a more stable system, though.

[Montague]

I think what you want is just more ethical behavoir from powerful people and institutions.

To me, greed isn't the problem. A cultural focus on materialism is what drives the economy and rises everyone's standards of living in the process. Greed makes sure everyone is providing for themselves by offering the drive or motivation to stay productive, at least enough to get what they want. Without some degree of materialistic greediness, people would just be content with substinence agricultural and begging for basic survival like monks taking vows of poverty in third-world countries and what not.

I'm content with people being greedy. I myself just take offense when people's greed comes at the wanton expense of other people's ambitions and wants. I'm not sure we need a cultural revolution so much as we just need a better legal framework and better monitoring of people and organizations to discourage corruption and unethical behavior. Corporations are already quite aware that they can't do whatever they want, litigation is a major threat to business and most try hard to avoid provoking it. It doesn't stop them from attempting other types of fraud and unethical practices that might have less obviously negetive impacts on people. The risky sub-prime lending crap that started this recession in the first place is an example of something a better legal framework would prevent.

Not sure a cultural revolution is needed. Although I imagine if everyone lived like monks, communially tending bean sprouts and living as spartan and austre as possible, things like market collapses would be a non-issue altogether.

[SalmonGod]

I may be alone in this, but I really think the answer is record keeping and writing everything out for government and corporate things, and forcing people not to use meaningless "organization speak" phrases.

a.) It pins people down and forces them to get their story straight before people question it.
b.) Because of "a" it makes it impossible for them to change said story later.
c.) It gives people evidence to use in a lawsuit for misconduct or other proceeding for a remedy to wrongs.
d.) It really deals with waste and corruption, as well as incompetence.

I agree that eternal diligence would solve our problems, but I don't believe it's sustainable.  People's attention spans simply don't work that way.

Mario Savio describes it best:

There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop.

That is what it takes for people to be diligent and actively involved.  Up until that point, it is safer for an individual to buckle down and endure their circumstances than to try and change them.  I've been saying all the things that Occupy is saying since I was 15, and the most sympathetic response has always something along the lines of  "Yeah.  Ok.  We know.  But stop.  It's not worth it to get worked up about this stuff.  You're just going to make yourself sick.  It's not so bad.  Yeah, some people get screwed, but not too many.  Just stick to the straight and narrow and find some good distractions instead of focusing on this stuff, and you'll be fine."   Nobody's saying that anymore.  Enough people have gotten heinously screwed by now that very few people don't at least care for someone who is suffering for reasons directly traced to the power of the super wealthy.

People's diligence is directly related to the idea that they have something to lose.  I was starting to question the nature of things for about a year before, due to being generally abused by the community I grew up in, but my real wake-up call was experiencing the cultural backlash and security hysteria following the Columbine shootings.  The day 9/11 happened, I knew the exact same dynamics were about to be applied on an international scale.  My life had granted me certain perspectives that informed me of a dire need for diligence.  Most people did not see the same things I did.  Up until a few years ago, my general impression of people was that they weren't really happy but they weren't really desperate either, and felt that they were better off remaining silent and distracting themselves in any way possible in daily life from their sense of injustice.  Only now do people feel a dire need to get involved with things, or they're going to lose everything.

If all Occupy achieves is reforms, then things will get better.  Then people will get comfortable.  Then things will get worse again.

[Angle]

I don't want people to live like monks, and I don't even have much of a problem with people wanting things (as long as they stay reasonable). What I have a problem with is the way we venerate materialism. The way that how much your stuff is worth determines how much you are worth. That is complete bullshit and it's the root of a lot of our problems.