Cloward-Piven Strategy

[The Dharma Bum]

[exploited]

The riskiness of it makes it stupid. Overloading the welfare system could just as easily result in austerity measures or government collapse as a minimum income.

[The Dharma Bum]

Didn't you say earlier that your philosophy was that the end always justifies the means? I guess your pronouncements are to be taken with a grain of salt then.

Either of those outcomes would be highly acceptable in my opinion. Austerity measures would surely lead to governmental collapse and of course dissolution of the state is the most desirable outcome of all.

Statism is the greatest evil to ever afflict humanity. No other force has any where the death toll that the phenomena of democide does. Well over 262 million people have been murdered by their own governments in the last one hundred years.

[exploited]

It'd be justified if it results in a national guaranteed income. But that is highly unlikely. Which is what I already said.

[Gremlin]

[The Dharma Bum]

(Please see my Technium thread for further discussion about technology.)

I'd say that depends entirely on what sort of religion you are talking about. According to Frazer the existential belief system that emerged first with early man was belief in sympathetic magic. This represents with the sort of beliefs that existed prior to the earliest forms of state when production was individualized and little or no surplus was available for commerce.

The second development in belief systems to emerge is closely related to the corresponding developments in collective agriculture and commerce and relates to justifying the use of force in compelling and controlling mechanized behavior. Frazer called this stage religion and it represents the earliest form of state entity.

The third development in belief system seeks to inform mass society and mass production with objectivity in regard to extremely complex systems of division of labor and the specialized technical knowledge required for industrial production and maintaining the sort of mass human psychology that will allow individuals endure it's rigors. Frazer called this stage in human belief science and it represents the modern industrial society.

We are just dipping our toes into a level of technical development that will allow the individualized production and equitable social features that were enjoyed by pre-state humans in combination with advanced technical capabilities.

We have the makings of a so-called "golden age" on our hands Gremlin, but it can't happen until the mindset that accepts coercive statism is replaced by a mind set that only accepts rational and equitable governance. Who knows what sort of belief system will emerge as this unfolds. I think it will be interesting to see how we grow if we don't destroy ourselves with our own stupidity and violence first.