Utopia discussions:

> Is utopia a heirarchical system?

Utopia will not demolish anything which is good in our society. Most organizations will go on much as before. The town council will debate if we need a new bridge over the river, if more than 50% votes for it a suggestion is sent to the roadbuilding department and the workers there will discuss the bridge. If they feel like it they will build a bridge.

Schools and hospitals will work as before, because a lot of people want it, and they will help to keep it open.

The local newspaper will still be printed, because journalists are proud of their work, the good ones anyway, and they want to tell stories and make newspapers.

Or do you really think that we all will sit down and see our civilization fall to pieces? I know that most people would help somehow, and I think it will work out fine. Don't you have any confidence in your fellow humans?

I do not know exactly what you mean with "hierarchical". In nature a lot of things are hierarchical in some sense, the rootsystem of a tree, a flock of wolfs.. It seems to work fine as an organizing principle.

In the human world we see families which are very hierarchical, and families which are very equal, where every family member is respected and everybody has a right to have an opinion. Both systems seems to work fine, but the modern family takes more consideration of modern ethical principles like; 1: personal freedom to form his life after ones own head. 2: equality between all people. 3: the right to information, (if only the father knows how much money they have, if only he knows the potential problems, he is left alone to take the important decisions, the other cannot help and they feel patronized) 4: the right not to be forced, threatened or violated, human rights.

In my hometown we have a cafe combined with a shop for 3rd world goods and used clothes. It was started 10 years ago by a few people who wanted to do something for solidarity, piece, environment, and help the refugees who had moved here.

It is called Solhuset (short for "the solidarity house") and is driven privately by people who work there unpaid.

Solhuset is a good example of how people organize things by themselves and can do it in an open, tolerant, and democratic way.

Most families nowadays are organized like utopia. Everybody helps are much as they want to, and everybody gets the food he/she needs.

If your criticism of utopia is that it is hierarchical you should consider that every person in utopia is a master of himself, so the power is extremely de-centralized. But, we can still use hierarchical structures. For example it is advantageous to have a centralized medical board in Sweden, because somebody has to coordinate the education and medical standards, certify new drugs etc..

> When the market system was effectively demolished in Soviet Russia the heirarchical system simply reasserted itself.

As long as the people themselves do not have the power it doesn't matter much who is robbing them, the party, the mafia, the capitalists, anyhow the people will be in the hands of other people. Only utopia can really give "power to the people".

Utopia is a very simple and concrete system which can replace capitalism without destroying the good structures of the old system.

It is so concrete that you yourself can start planning what you would do if utopia won the next election in your country.

You can plan what you want to do, and what private property you would choose to own. If you have a nice place to live you can keep it, you want a car and a sailing boat, etc.

If something is unclear to you, please read my articles again, and if it is still unclear please ask me.

Try to imagine, what would people in your hometown do if utopia was voted through?

Variation is the basis for development. Let everyone do whatever he/she likes to, unless it threatens somebody elses personal freedom or safety.

Let a thousand flowers bloom, let everybody decide for themselves.

Freedom, Equality, and Brotherhood. -----

> >Utopia will not demolish anything which is good in our society. Most organizations will go on much as before. The town council will debate if we need a new bridge over the river, if more than 50% votes for it a suggestion is sent to the roadbuilding department and the workers there will discuss the bridge. If they feel like it they will build a bridge.

> And if they feel more like building a clock tower?

They can always refuse to build anything, but if they want to build something which concerns other people in the town, they have to get the consent of the town counsil.

1: You cannot force anybody to do anything. 2: Public projects which concerns the people should be discussed in an open and democratic way, so the people can give their consent or stop the project.

> Or if there are not enough people who wants to be builders?

There are selfregulating processes, like if there are too few builders, being a builder will get more prestigious. They will be idols for the kids, and lots of kids will want to become builders. If there are too many the occupation will be not so popular, they will often go without work, because there are too many builders, the popularity goes down and fewer kids want to become builders.

If the sewers in the town are clogged up, tv and radio will talk about it. Who wants to go down into the sewage system and get dirty and smelly? Let the foul smell spread around town a few days, and everybody wants the problem solved. Somebody will do the job, because it is needed and the volonteer will be admired by the whole town.

Another regulating mechanism is how people discuss things in public media, like I do in this newsgroup right now. I have a suggestion to make our society better, I present my idea and answer questions, and if people think it's a good idea they will spread it and help to realize it.

These self-regulating processes are inhibited by capitalism in our society today, but when we abolish the monetary system reason and consent will regulate our society, instead of greed.

> Or the farmers decide they prefer to grow daffodils instead of wheat?

Most farmers will grow useful crops, because that is meaningful and feels rewarding to them. But variation is good, daffodils might also be useful or nice to look at.

> Money is a system of communication. It's a way by which demand and supply can be matched up. It's far from perfect but it more or less gets the job done.

Utopia means that we use all the other forms of communication we have in a modern society, but NOT money, because it brings a lot of problems. For example a monetary society is very risky, a financial crash could demolish the society. Utopia does not depend on stock values and speculating yuppies, it relies on every individual and his daily doings. Most of us will keep on doing what we like and believe to be best for ourselves and the society.

Can we really leave the future of our world in the hands of speculating yuppies who don't care about anything but the maximum growth rate of a pile of dollars?

In utopia the future of our world will be in the hands of ourselves. We would not fabricate crap just to make money, we would only produce things which the producer themselves think are good to produce.

>> Schools and hospitals will work as before, because a lot of people want it, and they will help to keep it open.

> If the people who want it have the skills. But then, who decides who gets to be doctor?

It can be organized like this: Everybody who wants to work as a doctor can do so, but only those who are authorized by the national medical board can have a sign saying so on their door.

So people can choose for themselves if they want to go to a regular doctor, authorized by the medical board, or to a faith healer or color therapeut or whatever.

Actually, this certificating system is already in place, as most other systems we need. We will only remove the monetary influence from the system.

Remember that before utopia is realized, more than 50% of the population in the country will have voted for it. Most of these voters will want this new system to work, and they will do what they can to make it work.

In utopia there is a police force who can take care of gangs and gangsters if and when they try to gain some power. But I doubt there will be much trouble. If all those potential gang members already have all they need, why would they follow some stupid gangsterboss and risk going to jail?

We already have lots of organization. The schools are organized, the newspapers, the tv-stations, the health care is organized, the people who like to sing in choires are organized, the fotboll players have clubs, etc

Today these organizations have one big problem, economy, which means that their organization is obstructed by the monetary system. In utopia these organizations are free from the money, and it will be a lot easier to organize when you have no money to worry about.

In utopia the football club takes care of the stadium, plays matches, and people can come and watch, just like today, but for free. A lot of cheating, doping, fixed matches, like we see today, will disappear in utopia. There is no economic incitement to hurt each other on the field anymore. The matches will be cleaner and nicer. All the advertisements which disturb the view will be gone. In utopia football will be about football, not money.

We can organize things ourselves, we don't need somebody to push us around with the power of money.

Today we have lots of communication systems, the internet for example. Tv, radio and newspapers are also communication systems, which will be used to identify and solve problems when they arise. -----

> So, in other words you have councils with the authority to tell people what they can and can't do.

They cannot tell people what to do, because everybody have their personal freedom. But there must be some rules for what you can NOT do.

For example if somebody wanted to build a nuclear power plant in my hometown, surely the people here must have a right to veto such plans if they do not want a nuclear reactor in town?

Utopia is based on a few basic principles. 1: Maximum personal freedom for the individual. 2: Everybody who are affected by some project should be able to influence the project. 3: Tolerance against people who do not think or act like everybody else. 3: Material equality. 4: Open democratic system.

Most of these principles are already applied in the nordic countries, (except the material equality) and we are trying to influence the rest of Europe to follow. In southern Europe the politicians still prefer to keep a lot of their work secret, but they are gradually beginning to accept that the people have a right to know about future plans for their town and be able to influence the decisions which form our future. In Sweden you can go to any authority or council and demand to see their protocols, incoming mail, plans etc.

People can only participate in the political process if they have information about what is happening and know the alternatives.

Right now in many european cities internet is used to open up the political debates. Many city councils are putting all protocols and studies on websites, and people can study the city's business and can participate in the debates via internet.

I have only taken the best systems we have in this world and made it even better, following the most important principles on which we build our society.

> >the problem solved. Somebody will do the job, because it is needed and the volonteer will be admired by the whole town.

> Or regarded as the mug who "cracked" first. Clasic human response: You have a willing horse so you beat him on another mile.

If you want to see this as a negative thing I can't stop you, but these are mechanisms which are basic in most situations where people cooperate.

For example if you are playing football, if nobody else scores for your team you would probably try if you got the chance, because you want your team to win. Or would you rather kick the ball over the sideline, just so the others couldn't say that "he cracked under pressure and made a goal"? Isn't that a very strange way of seeing things?

> >Most farmers will grow useful crops, because that is meaningful and feels rewarding to them. But variation is good, daffodils might also be useful or nice to look at.

> But workers, like farmers, like a concrete demonstration that people value their efforts. Only that really validates those efforts.

Yes, and that is exactly why most farmers will grow useful crops. If people have no use for daffodils you are less likely to be valued for your efforts if you grow them.

The most usual objections I have met are these. "Humans are lazy and evil by nature, so utopia would never work."

I think there are a lot of people who have more trust in their fellow human beings than that.

Have you ever wondered where such opinions come from? Don't you see how the old system propagates such opinions to justify their own existence?

In workplaces I have often seen laziness and fear of responsibility, but in my private life I mostly see examples of the opposite, people are willing to do a lot if they feel that they are free to make their own decisions and can do it in their own fashion. That is why utopia will be a lot more efficient than capitalism. People show much more energy when they feel free to use their own creativity instead of doing what they are told to do.

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First of all, I am not talking about peer pressure. If peer pressure was the driving force in utopia it would be like it was in China. The local community, the village or the block in cities, had all power over the residents of that community. Such a system is the opposite to individual freedom.

In utopia we have a modern democratic society, just like today, but without money. This means that nobody has any right to tell you what to do unless you break the law. Utopia means freedom, even from peer pressure. You can move into an apartment or a house and never talk to your neighbours if you want to, just like you can in New York today. Of course, if you start socializing with some people, they will probably have opinions and tell them, but if they don't like your lifestyle you don't have to bother about it.

In a modern society you don't get your food from your neighbours, you get it in the supermarket.

The selfregulating mechanisms I talk about are natural mechanisms between free individuals in a free society. Most of us want to be liked and loved by our closest friends. That means that to some degree we do things they like. But if you really want to grow daffodils I'm sure your friends wont mind. And if they do, get some new friends :-)

Kids hear what grownups talk about. If the parents talk about how hard it is to find a good doctor or good football player some of the kids will think of these occupations as rewarding and popular things to work with. More youngsters will then become doctors and football players. The system is selfregulating.

> It's when you are trying to coordinate the activities of more than about > a hundred people that more formal mechanisms become essential.

The society is coordinated at many levels, the town council and the local newsmedia coordinates town business, the government coordinate national business, United Nation coordinates global affairs.

We already have all those coordinating bodies, so the simplest solution is to keep them and develope them further.

Just take away the monetary coordinating bodies. They are not needed anymore, and they do more harm than good.

> Without some kind of imposed superstructure they will follow their > instincts and form themselves into competing tribes.

We already HAVE a superstructure. All the communications and organizing bodies in our modern world. The possibilities for people to participate in the democratic process at all levels are growing with the use of computers and internet. More and more people are learning to form their own opinion, put it into text, and use modern communications to influence the society.

> In order to be viable, a society has to be capable of dealing with with both lazy and evil people even though the majority of people are neither.

We are already coping with different people, gangsters are put in jail, sick people get taken care of etc.. The only difference is that there will be a lot less reason and opportunity to do crime in utopia. For example you cannot rob banks if there are no money, and no banks, and even if you could find some money there is nothing to buy for them.

Utopia is a lot easier to live in than the old system, because you are free to form your life after your own head. Happy and content people are less likely to cause trouble.

In utopia you have all the rights you had in the old society, except the right to push other people around with the power of money.

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Some hundred years ago half of the population was occupied in the production of food for the society. Today 1-2% of the population provide the whole society with food.

That meant that a lot of people were freed up from the acricultural sector and they could put their efforts into other areas, science, art, technology, music etc..

We have seen great developments in those areas during the last 200 years, and most of us are happy for the results these areas have given us.

Today half of the work we humans do is handling money, counting money, worrying about money, playing about money, dreaming of money, planning economy, controling money.

At my local supermarket 4 women recieve money and give change back, and one manager sits in the office worrying about money and making economic plans.

Five other employees work with real productive things, they recieve food and stuff from the transporters, unpack them and put them on shelves etc.

And in general half of all work today is money-handling.

If we abolish money half the workforce on this planet could do something else.

Capitalism is a very wasteful system. Beside the obvious waste of energy in money-handling capitalism produces a lot of goods only to make more money, not because those merchandise are wanted or needed. Goods are even destroyed to keep prizes up. For example, newly built houses are destroyed every week in Sweden, to keep the rent up in the other houses.

When the society can free up resources we can reduce the forcing mechanisms which forces people to work. We can afford higher ethical principles, like letting everybody do what they feel like. More respect for the individuals own ideas and wishes. We can afford to let everybody decide for themselves what they want to do of their lifes. Only a few percent of the people can easily provide the rest of the society with the most necessary things, food and housing. So few are needed that we can safely presume that this need can be filled with volontary work.

The natural result of the high productivity is utopia. We don't need to push people around anymore, (with the help of money), so we can abolish money.

Utopia is the natural next step in our civilization.

We all have about the same material needs, you need as much food as I do every day. You need just as many beds to sleep in at night as I do.

If we do not need to push people around with material rewards there is no reason left to have different levels of material comfort in the society.

This is also an ethical question. All children should have the same chance in life (equality), so we should not give some families a lot less resources than other families.

The only sensible solution is to give everybody the same material standard. Then we can forget about material status and start thinking about more important things. ------

> Isn't utopia essentially the soviet model?

Utopia is built on individual freedom, Soviet was built on controling the people. Utopia gives everybody the same material living standard, Soviet was a class-society, where party members had a lot higher living standard than others. Utopian ideas stem from the opponents of Marx, the anarchists and utopians. Utopians and anarchists have the same tradition of ideals, individual freedom etc. The difference is that anarchists are aggressive, want to tear down everything and start from scratch. Utopians are pacifists, want to keep all that is good and only reform the bad parts in a democratic way.

When an anarchist grows up and cools down he becomes a utopian :-)

The patent- and copyright laws were written to safeguard the inventors but instead they have become weapons in the competition between the multinational corporations. They are used both to hinder manufactoring, blackmail competitors and to prevent competition from smaller companies. Individual inventors can seldom get something out of their ideas. It takes a lot of money and smart lawyers to develope an invention to production and profit. In reality an inventor always has to chose between selling his idea cheaply to some big corporation or put it in the drawer and forget the whole thing.

Many scientists and ingeneers, for example a group at Massachusett Institute of Technology, say that the patent laws should be upheaved.

In utopia patent and copyright is no problem at all. Everybody already have their fair share of material comfort, so all ideas are free to use and all music is for free. Composers and inventors will work just because they like inventing or composing, and they will get recognition and fame for their work. In this way we could get rid of the enormous costs that the earlier system implied, in more expensive production, time lag for new inventions, lack of standardizing, costly repairs and spare parts. And it would also mean that our inventors could be inventing instead of spending all their time in court.

Patents are very damaging to the world community but copyright is even worse, I could talk for hours about all kinds of ill effects from the copyright laws. Only a few examples: The development of good educational textbooks and computer programs are seriously hampered. A school and information system for all people is impossible as long as all knowledge is copyrighted. Trade secrets forces industry and schools to do enormous amounts of unnecessary research work. The most important tool for creating a better future for the world is knowledge. The exchange, development and organizing of the human knowledge is paralysed by the copyright laws.

In general, lack of knowledge and communication have been used by all governments throughout the history to keep poor people poor and rich people rich. Today the copyright and patent issues are a big problem on internet. Utopia is the natural solution to those problems.

Some intelligent people have already applied utopian concepts in this capitalistic world.

Here is part of a recent article in New Scientist:

What Ballmer, Gates and the authors of leaked Microsoft memos are all worried about is a bunch of idealistic hackers scattered round the world, the software they've created and the revolutionary method they have devised for writing it. This new software poses a "direct" threat to Microsoft's revenue, says one memo, leaked on 31 October.

Their programs are already running most of the Internet. According to the monthly survey by the British consultancy Netcraft, the Web server software Apache is used by more than half of all websites. Sendmail moves nearly every e-mail message across the Net, while the BIND program acts as a traffic cop for most of the global network, directing messages down the right connections to their final destinations.

The proven robustness of these programs is bad enough for Microsoft. Even worse is that all of them--and many others--are completely free. That's "free" in two senses: you do not have to pay for them, and the "source code" in which they are written is openly available. You can modify the programs in any way you like, and even sell the result.

The "open source" movement is Microsoft's worst nightmare: a group of programmers that it cannot outcompete because its members are not motivated by profit, and which it cannot buy because they do not exist as a formal company. And because the results of their work are so good, more and more of Microsoft's potential customers are turning to them.

In the vanguard of the open source movement is Linux (http://www.linux.org.uk/), which was started in 1991 by a 21-year-old Finn, Linus Torvalds, who wanted to write a free alternative to the popular but costly operating system Unix. Today Linux is used by an estimated 7 million people, and the number is growing rapidly. One of Linux's advantages is that it runs on just about any hardware, from multi-processor supercomputers down to Palm Pilots. It is compact (it can fit on a floppy), highly efficient (even PCs based on Intel's old 386 chip can handle it) and very fast.

In a commercial software company, every program is carefully planned, and writing tasks are allotted unilaterally by the project leader. Linux is different. It is designed as a series of modules, and anyone can work on any of these interlocking elements. Whether your work gets included in the final release depends on the consensus view of how good it is--natural selection in action. Torvalds has the final say on what goes in, but he listens to top programmers in the relevant areas--in networking, say--who in turn canvass opinion in their fields. The only reward anyone, even Torvalds, gets for this work is kudos from fellow hackers. That's enough, it seems, to attract a flow of keen recruits, typically computer science students or software engineers who code Linux on the side.

Such purposive anarchy is made possible by the Internet. Trial versions of programs can be downloaded, and comments sent back to the authors, wherever they are. Programs frequently evolve on a daily basis. With the help of the Net, the Linux model exploits the ingenuity of typically hundreds of programmers and hundreds of thousands of testers. It's a pool of creativity that Microsoft, for all its huge resources, will never be able to match.

Alongside lack of support, another major criticism of Linux was that no major business programs ran on it. In particular, heavyweight databases--those digital treasuries entrusted with key corporate information--were conspicuous by their absence. So a clutch of announcements this summer that all bar one of the top vendors of database software--Computer Associates, IBM, Informix, Oracle and Sybase--would be coming out with Linux versions of their products was a real coup. At a stroke, a major objection to the deployment of Linux in commercial companies had been removed.

Given these advantages, and the manifest goodwill that the open source approach generates, software companies are starting to ask themselves "Why shouldn't it be open source?" rather than "Why should it be?" Corel, for example, sells a Linux-based PC system called NetWinder, and makes the code available as open source. Even Microsoft seems to recognise the shifting mood. "Perhaps," Ballmer has conceded, "we need to open things up." ------

Most of us, including both assembly line workers and farmworkers, are happy about the developments in science, technology, medicin, computer programming, music and literature which became possible when a big part of the workforce was liberated from the farmwork.

> >Today half of the work we humans do is handling money, counting money, worrying about money, playing about money, dreaming of money, planning economy, controling money.

If we could liberate ourselves from the money-handling we would take a new big step in the same direction, freeing up resources which can come to better use in other areas.

> The point though is that in this manipulation of money these people are, ultimately, controlling the production and distribution of real goods (a job that would have to be done anyway).

Do you seriously think that we need half the workforce to solve the logistics problems? :-)

If people are free to work when they want to we cannot plan the logistics in the same way we did before. We need a more flexible system which will occur naturally when we abolish money.

In the modern society we have a few big distributors of food. They deliver food to all the supermarkets and smaller shops. When utopia is started these food distributors must change their planning a bit. Instead of commanding deliveries, with the power of money, they will tell the producers what products are in more or less demand so the producers can regulate the production.

In a similar way most workplaces must change their planning a little. When you cannot command people to work you must plan the work in a more flexible way.

Many workplaces already have such planning today. Our local bus company have reserve drivers (retired drivers and technical service personnel) who can drive when they are needed to fill in for sickness etc, so this is not a big problem.

Not all people will be able to enjoy complete freedom in their workplace. A few categories, policemen for example, have power over other people, so their work must be regulated with strict rules for what they can and cannot do. We cannot accept that a policeman does whatever he feels like to the people who are arrested. So if you want to work as a policeman you have to accept, in utopia as in civilized countries today, that you will be checked upon and you have strict rules to follow.

Similarly, the food distribution planners must be impartial and follow some rules. Otherwise a planner could send more food and other merchandise to his own hometown and less to the rest of the country. But the distribution system will be closely monitored by scientists and journalists to insure a fair distribution of goods.

rj