(August 19th,
2023)
Foreword
I have been writing for the cause of human rights and liberty
for more than two decades. In that process, I have laid an intellectual depth
charge underneath those that are seeking to kill off freedom and prosperity among
human beings. And I have set that charge, in particular, under the political state;
the institution that for over five millennia has done more to damage human
lives and to hold back human progress than any other.
Of course, it is possible that my – and our – enemies may
be able to defuse my particular bomb. But I know that I am not alone. Others
have been, and are, working along similar lines. If I don’t get through their
defences, someone else will. Our enemies, I think, know deep down that, like
the dinosaurs and the Neanderthals, they are slated for extinction. And good
riddance.
To the purposes of this essay. Recently, I completed my
three-year programme of diagnosing, and offering some solutions to, our
political ills today. But I found that I had lost sight of at least one vital
piece of the puzzle. I had not written, or even planned, an Introduction to
give the interested, but as yet uninformed, reader an idea of what my ideas are
all about.
Not only that, but I had become sadly accustomed to
finding my essays growing all but out of control. My most recent major essay stretched
to 29,000 words! However clearly and concisely I try to write, I find I need to
say so much that it becomes hard to avoid writing long, rambling, professorial-style
tomes. I therefore saw a need to produce a management summary, to pull together
a complete outline of my idea system, in a package small enough to be read in
one or two sittings. My target was 15,000 words. Missed; but not by too much.
Moreover, I felt a need to step back and look at what I’ve
done. I wanted one more chance to take a detached view of the whole, and to put
each piece into its proper order and context. This essay, therefore, is my
attempt to plug these gaps.
I very much hope that this particular essay may reach
further than my previous writings. Even to the extent that people may find
themselves puzzling over it, who have never before heard of the world-wide
movements for human rights and liberty, or even of John Locke or his Two
Treatises of Government. If you are one such, I say to you: Welcome!
The timeline of my recent work
In 2014, I wrote and self-published a short book called
“Honest Common Sense.” This described itself as “a brief philosophy for all
honest, civil human beings.” In August 2020, I decided to re-visit and update
those ideas. The result, which I titled “Honest Common Sense 2.0,” was a series
of six essays, published on-line in June and July 2021.
The first of these essays identified the thinkers, past
and present, who have most influenced my philosophy; and outlined some of the
antecedents of my ideas. The second gave my viewpoint on human history in the
large. The third essay outlined my philosophical system, and the fourth and
fifth gave more detail on the individual building blocks within it. The sixth
and last sought to offer some thoughts on how we might seek to move from where
we are today towards a better world.
Having laid down my philosophical baseline, I then set about
trying to apply my ideas in order to improve the parlous political situation we
human beings find ourselves in today. The title of my series was: “Time to take
back our civilization from the parasites and pests.” I initially planned a set
of three essays: Indictments, Diagnosis and Cure. The first one was written in
November 2021, during the Glasgow CoP climate conference. It dealt principally
with environmental issues, and most of all with the vexed subject of climate
change. But it also listed many other bad things the political establishment
were doing to us at that time.
When I set out to write my Diagnosis of our ills, I found
that the work I had to do was at least an order of magnitude bigger than I had
anticipated. On top of that, during 2022 political events were happening so
fast, that I felt as if I was chasing after a moving target. I eventually
re-planned the series as a set of five essays rather than three.
The only visible product of my labours in the first 11
months of 2022 was a single essay on the United Nations’ Sustainable
Development Goals. I found, to my horror, that these were “nothing less than a
blueprint for the complete destruction of human civilization as we know it
today, and for tyranny by a self-appointed global ruling class over every human
being alive.” And those that think of themselves as our masters had signed us
all up to these goals back in 2015, without ever giving us any chance to
object, or even to have our views heard.
In early 2023, I took a slight détour, to write a set of somewhat shorter essays,
collectively titled “Climate Crisis? What Climate Crisis?” The first covered
the accusations which are being made against us and our human civilization on
the score of causing catastrophic global warming. It also examined the
objective evidence on the matter. I concluded as follows: “Whatever alarmists
may say, I for one don’t see any evidence for a ‘climate crisis.’ Still less is
there any hard evidence that emissions of CO2 by human civilization
are causing any climate problems at all. Nor is it at all certain that any
amount of reduction in CO2 emissions would achieve any improvement
in the climate.” These simple facts are now slowly, ever so slowly, starting to
etch their way into the minds of the general public.
Again, the second of the set proved far larger and more
complex than I had expected. I therefore had to split it into four parts. The
first part told the back-story of what has been done to us over this issue in
the UK since 2019. A truly horrifying tale. The second delved further into the
past, giving the back-story on the green agenda up to 1992. The third gave the
rest of the back-story from 1992 to the present. This included the perversion
of the precautionary principle, which lies at the heart of many of the problems
we suffer today. This perversion, in effect, inverts the burden of proof,
denies the presumption of innocence, and requires the accused – that’s us – to
prove a negative. Combine that with suppressing the right of the accused, even our
experts, to have our case heard, and you have gross injustice. The last in the
set addressed the “long train of abuses, prevarications and artifices, all
tending the same way” (in John Locke’s words), which has prevented proper
cost-benefit analysis ever being done on policies like “net zero,” that flow from
the climate change agenda.
My détour
over, I returned to my main set of essays, and was able to complete them during
the unseasonably cold, wet, windy July of 2023. Who needs “net zero” or
anything like it, if this is the kind of summer that we are likely to
face in the future?
In the remainder of this missive, I will provide a
broad-brush summary of the ideas and proposals contained in these latest five
essays.
Bottom-up versus top-down
At the very root of all my thinking is the distinction
between bottom-up and top-down ways of doing things. This can be applied, for
example, to the means by which an individual builds his or her world-view. A
bottom-up thinker assembles evidence and facts, then uses logic and rational
reasoning (including, where appropriate, science) to build the evidence and
facts into their large-scale picture of reality. A top-down thinker, on the other
hand, takes a set of ideas from someone else – often some religion, political ideology,
or popular fad – then tries to apply them to everyone and everything around
them.
Another area where bottom-up contrasts with top-down is
engineering. As computer scientist Arthur Norman has put it: “Building
skyscrapers top down is kind of a delicate matter.”
This distinction between bottom-up and top-down can also be
applied to forms of social organization. In a bottom-up social organization,
every individual is important. Such structures tend to be de-centralized, more like
a peer-to-peer network than a hierarchy. A truly free market is an example of a
bottom-up social structure. In a top-down organization, on the other hand,
those at the bottom or periphery are commanded, or controlled, or both, by
those at the top or centre. All today’s political systems, even democracies,
are built on top-down lines.
My bottom-up philosophy
The distinction can also be applied to systems of ideas,
even to complete philosophies. My own philosophy, for example, is very much a
bottom-up one. It starts from what we are; from our identity and our nature as
human beings. Our nature is to be creative, to build civilizations, and to take
control of, and leave our mark on, our surroundings.
At the next level up, we make sense of the world around us,
by identifying and seeking to understand what is out there, and so assembling
our store of knowledge. Next, we come to understand ourselves, our nature, and
what is right and wrong for human beings to do.
Beyond this, we base our desired social organizations on
bottom-up principles. We seek to create systems which provide maximum benefit
to every individual in them. For example, by upholding human rights, and
delivering objective, common-sense justice to everyone, while allowing maximum
freedom consistent with living in a civilized community. This produces what I
call Civilization, as opposed to the top-down politics under which we suffer
today.
At the highest level, such bottom-up social structures
provide the environment, in which each and every human being can do what is
natural for us to do. That is, to be creative; to trade freely with others for
the benefit of all parties; and to live our lives well, and fulfil our
potential. And, in the process, to make ourselves prosperous and happy.
Today’s top-down politics
In complete contrast is the top-down system called politics,
under which we suffer today. I call its underlying philosophy Downerism.
(“Downer” is short for “top-downer.”) I noticed recently that in different
essays I have tended to use different names for our enemies as a group. When
considering their philosophy of life, I have tended to call them Downers. When
considering their behaviour, I have usually dubbed them “politicals.” This is because
they like to use politics, either to enrich themselves or their cronies, or to
harm those they don’t like, or both. There is a close commonality between the
two, Downers and politicals.
The Downer methodology begins with an agenda. Often, a more
or less thinly disguised programme of hatred and destruction. Think Hitler, Pol
Pot, Maurice Strong or Sadiq Khan.
Next, Downer agenda setters seek to use politics to force
their vision on others against their wills. They pursue power and control over
others. They seek political power, for themselves or for those who subscribe to
similar visions. They build a political movement, in order (apparently) to
legitimize their agenda and their ideology.
For Downers, legislation made by those in power trumps any
notions of right and wrong, and any ideal of justice. Thus, they seek to get
made bad and oppressive laws, with which to drain and to rule over people, and
to impose their agenda and ideology on everyone. Thus, once Downers are in
control, ethics goes out of the window, and so do human rights.
Downers require narratives and propaganda to sustain their
agendas. So, they like to create a mental atmosphere of lies and deceit, hype, gloom
and doom, and unreasoning fear. They season this atmosphere with fake or
misleading news, smears and insults. And they seek to suppress dissenting
views.
At the bottom of the pyramid, the foot soldiers of Downerism
believe, with blind faith, in the Downer agendas and narratives. They promote,
support or enforce bad, unjust laws. They think that those bad laws are right,
just because some bunch of politicians made them. And that those who will not
believe the faith, must be made to follow it by force.
For Downers, the agenda, the ideology, the collective, the
state, the laws, the propaganda narratives, are everything. And the individual
human being, rights and freedoms, truth and honesty, right and wrong, objective
common-sense justice, and human prosperity in the free market, all count for
nothing.
From the point of view of us human beings, Downers are a drain
on us and a danger to us. They truly are a down on us. For we want to be free to
build human Civilization. But they desire to preserve and to expand their politics,
and the (direct or indirect) power it gives them. Power to rule over us, power
to profit from us, power to impoverish us, power to oppress us.
My view of human history
I gave my view of human history in the second essay of the
latest set. That essay also included a section entitled “My liberty journey.” The
nearest you will ever get from me to an autobiography! The following is a brief
summary of the remainder.
I see human history, on the large scale, as a running battle
between us human beings and our Downer enemies. Following an outline put
forward by an American thinker who calls himself Jason Alexander, I view
history as a series of forward-moving revolutions, in each of which we human
beings open up, and start to explore, new levels or dimensions of our humanity.
And we re-explore, and develop further, those dimensions which we had
previously opened up. But each of our revolutions is eventually followed by a
regressive, anti-human counter-revolution from those that are hostile to us and
to our progress. Downers, politicals, our enemies, call them whichever you
will.
Since the Neanderthal extinction, I count five of these human
revolutions to date, each followed by a Downer counter-revolution.
The Neolithic revolution and the first counter-revolution
I see the first of our revolutions as having been the Neolithic
revolution of about 12,500 years ago. That was when we began to settle down in
communities, to cultivate crops, and to domesticate animals. This turned us
from mere predator animals into human beings, capable of building civilizations.
It was the point at which we differentiated from, and became superior to, mere animals.
It was a practical revolution, and its paradigm was Humanity.
In contrast, our enemies’ first counter-revolution, starting
probably around 3,200 BC, was the rise of the political state. And the state
itself – a top-down system that enables an élite forcibly to rule over a,
potentially large, group of people – was its counter-paradigm.
Ancient Greece and the second counter-revolution
Our second revolution, a mental one, was seeded in ancient
Greece, beginning around the late 7th century BC. Its paradigm was
Reason. It taught us to think rationally and abstractly; for example, to do
mathematics and philosophy. And it enabled us to build new and better kinds of
civilization, such as Athenian democracy.
Our enemies’ second counter-revolution began in the 4th
century AD, when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire.
It produced a powerful church, to go with the state. Institutional religion
enabled the unscrupulous to control people mentally, just as the state enabled
them to control people physically. This led to the Dark and Middle Ages. The counter-paradigm,
then, was institutional religion, and the church that embodied it.
The Renaissance and the third counter-revolution
Our third revolution began at the Renaissance. Its paradigm
was Discovery. Of ideas both old and new, of new places, of ourselves. It was a
spiritual revolution; a rise of the human spirit.
It helped us to emerge from the top-down tyranny of the
church and the feudal political system. It brought a sense of renewed
confidence in our own faculties. It brought a new sense of freedom for human
beings, who had been for so long suppressed by orthodoxy. And it laid the
groundwork for the later development of science.
Our enemies’ third counter-revolution had two components: religious
and secular. The religious part produced wars, moral panics, Inquisitions and
witch-hunts. Even so, the power of the papacy, at least, was greatly reduced.
But the secular part was more damaging to us. It contained
three main strands. First, Niccolò
Machiavelli prompted rulers to be sly, deceitful, and unscrupulous. As well as
cruel, oppressive and heartless.
Second, Jean Bodin articulated a new theoretical basis for the
political state, sovereignty. In Bodin’s scheme, the “sovereign” – the king or
ruling élite – is fundamentally different from, and superior to, the rest of
the population in its territory, the “subjects.” The sovereign has moral privileges.
It can make laws to bind the subjects, and give privileges to those it chooses
to. It can make war and peace. It appoints the top officials of the state. It
is the final court of appeal. It can pardon guilty individuals if it so wishes.
It can issue a currency. It can levy taxes and impositions, and exempt at will
certain individuals or groups from payment. Furthermore, the sovereign isn’t
bound by the laws it makes. And it isn’t responsible for the consequences to
anyone of what it does (also known as “the king can do no wrong.”)
Bodin’s system was rolled out across Europe, and later the
world, as the “Westphalian” nation state. We’re still suffering under it today.
And whenever, as happens far too often, such a state is captured by those with
Machiavellian tendencies, then bad laws, cronyism, wars, injustices and
persecutions, corruption, inflation, heavy taxes (except on favourites), recklessness
and lack of accountability become rife. They’re all built into the nature of
the political state, and the nature of the Downers and politicals that like to
use state power to impose their nefarious schemes on us human beings.
Third, Thomas Hobbes invented the fiction of a “social
contract,” which makes out that each and every one of us has implicitly agreed
to be subject to a political government. Even one that harasses, drains and oppresses
us.
If I try to reduce the essence of the third
counter-revolution to its major elements, I come up with four: Orthodoxy,
tyranny, dishonesty, and ethical inequality.
The Enlightenment and the fourth counter-revolution
Our fourth revolution was the Enlightenment. Like the
second, it was a mental revolution. Its paradigm was Freedom. From it have
flowed all the (relative) freedoms we have enjoyed in the West over the last
three centuries.
It brought new ideas, more friendly to the individual than
before, that are commonly called “Enlightenment values.” These included:
Greater religious tolerance. Freedom of thought and action. Natural rights,
natural equality of all human beings, and human dignity. The idea that society
exists for the individual, not the individual for society. Constitutional
government, with the consent of, for the benefit of, and serving rather than
ruling over, the governed. The rule of law. A desire for human progress, and a
rational optimism for the future.
But our enemies responded with a counter-revolution of many
strands. At its root, their counter-paradigm was collectivism. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
developed the social contract fiction into a collectivist nightmare. And Georg Hegel
demoted the human individual to a status of total subordination to the state.
Over time, a slew of political ideologies emerged, all of which were
collectivist and hostile to the ordinary, individual human being. Socialism,
nationalism, Toryism, communism and fascism, for example. Not to mention
theocracy!
The Industrial Revolution and the fifth counter-revolution
Our fifth revolution was the Industrial Revolution. Which,
like the first, was a practical revolution. Its paradigm was Creativity, and it
was supported by the free market and free trade. It has enabled those countries,
which have fully embraced it, greatly to increase the general standard of
living of ordinary people. And so, greatly to increase their quality of life
and their happiness.
Our enemies’ fifth counter-revolution, though, has been growing
for the last 80 years or so. Its counter-paradigm is Suppression, with a strong
sub-theme of corruption. Suppression of truth, suppression of rights,
suppression of freedom, suppression of prosperity. Suppression of our humanity
and our creativity. Suppression of us.
Like the third and fourth counter-revolutions, this one has
included many different strands. The political classes in individual countries,
even in democracies, have become more and more tyrannical towards the people
they are supposed to serve. Governments and their cronies are coming to treat
us like resources to be exploited, objects, or even mere numbers in a database;
not with the dignity due to us as human beings.
On top of this, globalist and internationalist élites seek to shape political
policies around the world to suit their own vested interests. Organizations
like the United Nations and the European Union have risen, grown, and become
more and more corrupt and tyrannical. The green leviathan, too, has grown, to
the point where it now threatens to destroy the energy security and the economies
of almost all Western countries, including the UK. And all for no reason but a
pack of lies and unfounded scares!
“Non-governmental” and nominally private organizations have
joined the bandwagon too. For example, associations of big corporations, such
as the World Economic Forum and the World Business Council for Sustainable
Development, are seeking to force their view of the future on us, whether we
like it or not. Whole industries, like Big Pharma, will take any opportunity governments
throw their way to make themselves richer and richer at our expense. And banks
and other financial bodies are ready to “de-bank,” or otherwise to punish,
anyone who dares to speak out against orthodoxy.
Meanwhile, advisors and influencers, technocrats and
“experts,” green, religious or political-correctness maniacs, financial and
big-business élites, academics and activists, and some that are several of the
above, fall over each other to take as much as they can from us, and to do as
much harm to us as they can. Life for ordinary people is becoming, more and
more, an Orwellian nightmare.
So, where are we
today?
Where are we today? In a nutshell: The current political
system has failed.
Government, the very institution that is supposed to defend
and uphold the rights of human beings against criminals and wrongdoers, has
been taken over by, and is being run by, a cadre of those same criminals and
wrongdoers. Moreover, an international élite, spearheaded by the United Nations,
and including multi-national corporations, dishonest politicians, and activist
fellow-travellers, seeks to “unite the world” into a single world-wide
superstate, under the tyranny of a global ruling class, unelected and
unaccountable.
Further, today’s governments tax us all but out of
existence. They press ahead manically with tyrannical and destructive policies like
“net zero” and ULEZ, based on nothing but lies and hype. And the system is
rigged, so ordinary people cannot obtain redress, or even get our objections
heard.
Governments, at all levels, have lost trust in, and respect
for, the people they are supposed to serve. In return, very many ordinary
people have lost trust in and respect for governments.
So-called democracy has failed. Most of our “representatives”
today fail even to try to represent us. They fail to fight, on our behalf, our
corner against all the vested interests that scrap for power and control over
us. And many of them actively support pernicious policies like high taxes and “net
zero.” Many of them are deeply dishonest, too, as shown by the scandals which
crop up so regularly.
Further, in a supposed democracy, it should be the people
(that is, persons eligible to vote) who dictate the direction in which a
country moves politically. The people should be able to set the direction and
tone of government, and every individual should have a full and fair say in
what policies it will adopt; not merely a bunch of lying, thieving, scheming
politicians and their cronies.
Still less should that direction be driven by unaccountable
internationalist, globalist and corporate élites. Indeed, any democracy
worth the name must be based, ultimately, on self-determination for the people.
External parties such as the EU or UN, multi-national corporations, and groups
such as the World Economic Forum should not be allowed any say at all in the
direction in which a country moves. Only the people of that country should have that say.
Moreover, all the mainstream political parties today are bad.
Albeit, each is worse in slightly different ways. What is the worth of a vote,
if there is no-one worth voting for?
And further, as Mahatma Gandhi has told us: “In matters of
conscience, the law of the majority has no place.” The idea that ten people can
vote to tell nine people what is to be “legal” or “illegal” for them to do, is
a travesty of all conceptions of freedom and justice.
Democracy, as it exists today, is coming to be seen as the
empty sham it is. Moreover, it ends up breaking apart the very sense of “we”
that seemed to give it legitimacy in the first place. The victims of unjust
policies feel harshly treated, and become disaffected. Those who have been
harmed by the policies of particular parties come to hate those parties, and
those that vote for them. As a victim of a bad tax law called IR35, which has
all but destroyed my career and condemned me to poverty in my old age, I know
that those who, like me, have been harmed by policies of successive governments
of all parties, come to feel hatred and contempt for the whole political
system, and for anyone that takes an active part in it. Thus, sham democracy destroys
the cohesion, the “glue” which ought to keep a community of people together.
My ethical and political philosophy
To more constructive matters. When mapped on to the areas of
conventional philosophy known as ethics and politics, my system of ideas can help
to move people’s minds towards a future of freer, happier and more prosperous
lives for all human beings.
The name I use for the layer of my bottom-up philosophy which
corresponds to ethics (the branch of knowledge that deals with moral
principles) is Behave. This layer seeks to answer the question: What behaviours
are right (or wrong) for a human being? My broad-brush answer is: Right
behaviour for a human being is behaving according to human nature.
Further, as I said above, it is our nature to be creative,
to build civilizations, and to take control of, and leave our mark on, our
surroundings. When dealing with the interface between ethics and politics, it
is the building-civilizations part of our nature which is most relevant. Put
simply, right behaviour for a human being is civilized behaviour.
In the arena of politics and governance, the question I ask
is: How should we human beings organize ourselves for maximum benefit to all?
Thus, the name I give to the equivalent of politics in my system is Organize.
The bottom-up nature of my system means that ethics must drive politics, not vice
versa. So, the individuals, to whom governance must be of benefit, are
exactly those individuals who behave, according to their human nature, in
civilized ways.
A proper ethical code consistent with human nature, and a proper
system of governance based on bottom-up principles, can combine to produce the
habitat which we human beings need in order to flourish. That is, peace, human
rights, objective justice, and maximum freedom for all, including the economic
free market. Such a habitat will enable us to build a prosperous and durable economy,
and so to fulfil ourselves.
I have distilled the Behave and Organize layers of my
philosophical system down to a set of twelve key ideas. I will now state, and
briefly discuss, each of them in turn. Those who would like a little more
detail should look at the third essay in my latest set.
Identity determines morality principle
The first of my key ideas, I state as: Right and wrong
behaviours for a species of sentient beings are determined by the nature of the
species. Briefly put, identity determines morality.
Thus, any species of sentient beings has its own “natural
law,” which determines what is right and wrong for a member of the species to
do. Right and wrong for a giraffe, for example, are different from right and
wrong for a lion. A giraffe naturally picks fruit and leaves off the tops of
tall trees. Whereas a lion naturally chases, kills and eats animals like zebra.
If they tried to swap behaviours, both would go hungry, and many lions would
die through falling out of trees.
For humans, it follows that right and wrong behaviours are
determined by human nature. And, as I indicated above, right behaviour for a
human being is civilized behaviour.
Ethical equality principle
I state the second key idea as: What is right for one to do,
is right for another to do under similar circumstances, and vice versa.
The principle arises from the premise that all individuals
of a species have the same nature. If they did not have the same nature, they
would be different species. And therefore, what is right and wrong for each
individual to do is the same for all individuals of the species.
This applies, in particular, to human beings. What is right
and wrong for any human being to do is determined by the nature of humanity;
what John Locke called the “law of Nature,” and many others have called natural
law. Thus, what is naturally right (or wrong) for each human individual to do,
is the same for all human individuals. And those that behave, habitually or
grossly, outside the bounds of human nature, are not us. They are not
human.
Honesty and integrity
The third key idea relates to honesty, integrity and the
relationship between them.
The word “honesty” has many meanings. For example, seeking
and telling truth, straightforwardness, trustworthiness. But my own definition
is all of the above, and more: Honesty is being true to your nature. Honesty is
behaving as is natural for a human being.
In my take, integrity is the product of honesty. Integrity constitutes
the observable behaviours, which come from being true to your nature, and
behaving as a human being.
The Convivial Code
The fourth key idea, I call the Convivial Code. It is an
ethical code of conduct, encapsulating the behaviours which are right (and,
implicitly or explicitly, the behaviours which are wrong) for human beings.
People who follow it make themselves convivial, or otherwise put “fit to be
lived with.”
The Convivial Code specifies (or more accurately, when it
has been written, will specify) a minimum set of standards of behaviour for all
human beings worth the name. It is, in essence, a touchstone for humanity. It
is based on human nature, and it is independent of culture.
I will give you, at this point, John Locke’s simple and
straightforward rendition of the Code. “Being all equal and independent, no one
ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.” So, no
killing of human beings, no physical assaults, no infringing on others’ rights
or freedoms, and no stealing or destruction of property. That’s a pretty good
start.
My own best shot so far at an outline of the Code is as
follows: Be peaceful. Seek the facts, and tell the truth. Be honest. Strive
always to behave with justice, integrity and good faith. Be tolerant of those
who are tolerant towards you. Respect the rights and freedoms of those who
respect your equal rights and freedoms. Don’t interfere in other people’s
business without a very good, objective reason. Take responsibility for the
effects of your voluntary actions on others. And practise what you preach.
Note that these are basic minimum standards for human
behaviour. Every human being worth the name ought to be able to meet them all for
the very great majority of the time. Those that fail to meet them habitually,
or in large matters, are not worthy of the name human being.
A problem with viewing ethics in terms of lists of obligations,
such as my list above, is that it isn’t always practical to keep to the
obligations with absolute strictness. For example, to include in the Code an
absolute prohibition on physical violence would be impractical, because it
would not allow those under attack to defend themselves. Each rule of the Code
must, therefore, also specify the conditions under which individuals may
reasonably break it, and at what level they may do so. Reasons for such
exceptions might include, for example: Self-defence. Defence of others. To
arrest and hold someone reasonably suspected of real wrongdoing for a short
period prior to trial. And to force a wrongdoer to compensate the victims of
the wrongdoing, and if appropriate to punish that wrongdoer proportionately, after
conviction by an honest court of justice.
One way in which the Code will differ from systems of
political laws, is that the Code will be essentially timeless. Once set up, it
needs no legislative. Changes only become necessary when circumstances occur
which have not been envisaged before, or human nature itself changes, or new
knowledge becomes available about what it is. And these events are rare.
Because of this, absent such events, the Code will be applicable
retrospectively.
Rights are earned principle
The first four key ideas were concerned with right and
wrong behaviour in general. The next three address how a human individual
should behave towards other human beings.
My fifth key idea is the first of a matched pair on the topic
of human rights. I state it as: You earn your own rights, by respecting the
equal rights of others around you. By “rights” here, I mean all the valid
rights which have been documented in lists such as Magna Carta, the US Bill of
Rights, and much of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. And quite a few more.
In my view, rights are not granted by some government, deity
or other external party. Each individual earns his or her human rights,
by respecting the equal rights of others. And this respect for rights is built
into the nature of any human being worth the name.
Of course, when you were born, you had already “earned”
these rights in principle, because you had not harmed, or tried to harm, any
other individual. But you must continue to respect others’ rights, in order to
retain and to expand your own rights.
Respect for rights principle
Here’s the sixth key idea. The flip side of rights being
earned is that by acting as is natural for a human being, and respecting
others’ rights, you acquire an expectation that others will respect your equal
rights. If you respect others’ rights, your own rights ought to be sacrosanct.
I put these two principles together as: Human rights are for
human beings, and human beings have human rights.
Judgement by behaviour principle
The seventh key idea I state as: It isn’t who someone is
that matters, only what they do.
Judgement by behaviour represents a practice of judging
individuals by examining how they behave. It means that you should not take too
much account of things outside an individual’s control, such as race,
birthplace, social class, received religion or disability. Instead, you should
judge people by their actions. And, of course, their motivations for doing what
they do, as far as you can work them out.
Another way to put this idea is: Human is as human does.
Community versus society
With my eighth key idea, I enter the realm of social
organization, classically called politics.
I make an important distinction between a community
and a society. A community is a group of people, bound together by some
shared characteristic; but not necessarily by anything more. A society, on the
other hand, is a group of people who have agreed to join together in a common
cause.
A society has what Jean-Jacques Rousseau called a “general
will,” a will shared by the members as a whole. Provided, of course, that
those, who cease to agree with the objectives or the conduct of the society,
can freely leave the society.
A community, on the other hand, has no general will. Thus,
it does not exist as a collective, only as a group of individuals. The people
who reside in a particular geographical area, for example, are bound together
into a community by their common place of residence. But they are not a
society, because there is no common cause in which they have all agreed to
join.
Voluntary society principle
The ninth key idea, I state as: All societies must be
voluntary. This is the primary principle of organizing a Civilization, as
opposed to a political government.
This principle is explicitly supported by the UN Declaration
of Human Rights, Article 20(2): “No one may be compelled to belong to an
association.”
A major consequence of this is that because those who live
in a particular geographical area are only a community, not a society, they
cannot be assumed to support or to accept any particular political ideology or
set of policies. Therefore, they ought not to be subjected to any political
government.
Falsity of the “social contract” fiction
The “social contract” fiction was, so it seems, invented in
the 17th century by Thomas Hobbes. According to this narrative, at some time in
the past, a group of people (or, at least, a majority of them) made a contract
with each other, that they consented to be ruled over despotically by an
absolute sovereign. And that we, today, are still bound by their agreement.
My tenth key idea is that this fiction is false. Even if my
ancestors might have subscribed to such a thing (and, as far as I know, they
didn’t), I as an individual have never agreed to any social contract! Where is
my signature on any such damn thing? Moreover, where are the statements of the
benefits I am supposed to get from it, and the procedures for me to get justice
and redress if the government party fails to deliver?
The social contract fiction has led to an idea that there is
something called “Society” in the singular, to which everyone in a particular
area – such as the territory claimed by a state – belongs, whether they want to
or not. According to this narrative, all of us have agreed to an implied
contract, that makes us part of this “Society,” and thus subjects of a
Hobbesian sovereign. This, in turn, makes us subject to a political government,
and to the decrees of its leaders and officials for the time being.
The voluntary society principle leads me to reject this idea
of “Society” in the singular. I also reject derived ideas like “social justice”
and “social security.” And I oppose all political ideologies – like socialism,
communism and fascism – that depend on the idea. I also reject any implication
that I have ever agreed to be part of a political society (other than a political
party I joined voluntarily). And, having not voted in a UK general or local
election since 1987, I have never signed up to be governed by any cabal of
politicians now in existence.
I state this tenth key idea as: There is no such thing as
“society” in the singular. There are only societies.
Common-sense justice principle
The eleventh, and perhaps the most important, of my key
ideas is the common-sense justice principle. I state it as follows: Every
individual deserves to be treated, over the long run, in the round and as far
as practicable, as he or she treats others. Thus, common-sense justice is
individual justice.
What this means, from the individual’s point of view, is
that if you treat others well, you deserve to be treated correspondingly well
by others. And if you treat others badly, you deserve to be treated
correspondingly badly. What could be more common-sense than that?
Some may find this idea a bit scary. It is, indeed, close to
the vision of the prophet Obadiah: “As thou hast done, it shall be done unto
thee: thy reward shall return upon thine own head.” But the principle also
implies that if you don’t do, or seek to do, harm to innocent people, you don’t
deserve to suffer any harms being done to you. For good people, it’s not scary
at all.
On the other side, if you do harm to others, or seek to do
harm to others, or seek to impose on others unreasonable risks of harm, then
you should be required to compensate those whose lives you damaged, and if
appropriate to be punished in proportion to the seriousness of what you did. Common-sense
justice is a hard taskmaster; but it is a fair one.
Maximum freedom principle
The final key idea is the maximum freedom principle. It
allows maximum freedom of choice and action for everyone, consistent with
living in a civilized community.
I have expressed it as: Except where countermanded by
justice, the Convivial Code or respect for rights, every individual is free to
choose and act as he or she wishes.
Why do we need governance?
Next, a basic question. Why do we need governance at all?
Why can’t we simply get rid of governments altogether, and get on with living
our lives? I can think of no better way to answer this question than through quoting
from the Two Treatises of Government, written in the late 17th
century by John Locke, the father of the Enlightenment. The Second Treatise, in
particular, is for me the greatest work of political philosophy yet written.
In his Second Treatise (§4), Locke started from a view of
humans being naturally in “a state of perfect freedom to order their actions,
and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the
bounds of the law of Nature. A state also of equality, wherein all the power
and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another.” Of this law
of Nature, he says: “The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it,
which obliges every one, and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who
will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm
another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.” I have already used this final
clause as a first cut at an outline of the Convivial Code.
Locke recognized that all human beings are bound together into
a community by this law of Nature. In §128
of the Second Treatise he says: “By which law, common to them all, he and all
the rest of mankind are one community, make up one society distinct from all
other creatures.” But he also knew that, among those born human, some fail to
keep to this law of Nature. For he continues: “And were it not for the
corruption and viciousness of degenerate men, there would be no need of any
other, no necessity that men should separate from this great and natural
community, and associate into lesser combinations.”
I will add a brief note about the word “degenerate,” which
Locke uses here. It comes from the Latin de- (away from) and genus
(a race, or a kind). Through degener (meaning debased) and degeneratus
(no longer of its kind), it evolved in the 15th century into its
present form.
To counter the dangers posed by these degenerate individuals,
Locke posits (§95) that a group of people may choose to form a “political
society.” This they do “by agreeing to join and unite into a community for
their comfortable, safe and peaceable living.” This is his version of the
“social contract” idea, and his rationale for forming a government.
But he is very clear about the purposes of any such
agreement. “The great and chief end, therefore, of men uniting into
commonwealths, and putting themselves under government,” he says in §124, “is
the preservation of their property.” And in §57: “The end of law is not to
abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.” Moreover, he says of
governments in §135: “Their power in the utmost bounds of it is limited to the
public good of the society. It is a power that hath no other end but
preservation, and therefore can never have a right to destroy, enslave, or
designedly to impoverish the subjects.” And the “public good” he defines in the
First Treatise, §92: “the good of every particular member of that society, as
far as by common rules it can be provided for.”
Locke also made it clear that any government, that departs
from its remit of upholding the good of every single individual among the
governed (real wrongdoers excepted), loses its legitimacy. He says in §201 of
the Second Treatise: “Wherever the power that is put in any hands for the
government of the people and the preservation of their properties is applied to
other ends, and made use of to impoverish, harass or subdue them to the
arbitrary and irregular commands of those that have it, there it presently
becomes tyranny.”
Moreover, he cautions in §12 that “a great part of the
municipal laws of countries” are no more than “the fancies and intricate
contrivances of men, following contrary and hidden interests put into words.”
And such laws are “only so far right as they are founded on the law of Nature.”
Otherwise put, laws made by politicians, that go against the law natural to
human beings, are not valid, and should not be obeyed by human beings.
In §149, he says of government power: “All power given with
trust for the attaining an end being limited by that end, whenever that end is
manifestly neglected or opposed, the trust must necessarily be forfeited, and
the power devolve into the hands of those that gave it.” Further, the people
always retain “a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative, when they
find the legislative act contrary to the trust reposed in them.” And they are
entitled (§222) “to resume their original liberty.” So, if any government goes
rogue, we the people have a right to kick it out. And to replace it, or not, as
we choose.
In §140, he addresses taxation. “It is true governments
cannot be supported without great charge, and it is fit every one who enjoys
his share of the protection should pay out of his estate his proportion for the
maintenance of it.” I read this as meaning that each individual should pay, for
any period in which government defends his assets, in proportion to the benefit
he receives from that protection. And I read “out of his estate his proportion”
as saying that how much he is expected to pay should be in direct proportion to
his total wealth. That means, there should be no taxes on incomes or on
transactions, no taxes at all on the poorest, and very definitely no
impositions on some kinds of people but not others!
And Locke is very clear and forthright, when he says in
§225: “But if a long train of abuses, prevarications and artifices, all tending
the same way, make the design visible to the people, and they cannot but feel
what they lie under, and see whither they are going, it is not to be wondered
that they should then rouse themselves, and endeavour to put the rule into such
hands which may secure to them the ends for which government was at first
erected.” That’s exactly where we are right now, in the UK and virtually every
other Western country.
Just governance
Next, I shall outline my proposal for a new, bottom-up
system of governance, which could replace, and fix the problems with, the
current, top-down, failed system of political states and political governments.
This system can help us to “turn our world the right way up.”
I call my proposed system, to supersede the political state,
“just governance.” I have used the word “governance” rather than the more usual
“government,” because I wish to maintain a clear separation between the two
systems. I discussed the new system in the third essay of my latest set. The
following is a brief summary.
The functions of just governance
The new system will govern communities of individuals, in
much the same way as a referee governs a football match. It will also adjudicate
as needed on the relationships between those individuals, the voluntary
societies to which they belong, and other individuals and societies they
interact with.
The primary function of just governance will be provision of
common-sense justice to all. Maintenance of peace and tranquillity, and the
upholding of the human rights of all those who respect others’ equal rights,
are also important functions. And just governance will allow maximum freedom
for everyone, consistent with living in a civilized community.
Just governance will also include strong quality assurance
on its own processes. For example, lying, or any kind of dishonesty, by
officials of governance against the people they are supposed to be serving will
be a very serious, even a dismissal, offence.
Just governance will also need some subsidiary functions,
such as diplomacy with other just governances and, for a time, with legacy
states.
Crucially, just governance will not have any permanent
legislative. For its code of law, the Convivial Code, comes from human nature,
not from edicts made by political élites.
The character of just governance
Just governance will be bottom-up and de-politicized. It
will focus on the individual, and on small communities. And it will not allow
any political or religious ideology or agenda to be imposed on any of the
governed against their wills. Moreover, it will not seek to control or to
meddle with economic activity in any way.
In structure, it will be like a network, not a hierarchy. It
will have no central or commanding point, at which undue concentration of
political power can collect. Except in clear emergency, it will be reactive
rather than pro-active. And it will have no mechanisms to enable one interest
group unjustly to override the interests of others.
The judicial function
The primary institutions of just governance will be
judicial, including impartial arbitration of disputes and objective assessment
of externalities and risks. The major institution will be courts of just
governance.
Ultimately, the authority of just governance can only come
from its impartiality, its objectivity, its honesty, and the common-sense
nature of its principles.
As in today’s legal systems, I expect there will be a
separation between two areas of justice. On the one hand, arbitration and
restorative justice; that is, the resolution of disputes, and the calculation
and ordering of restitution for wrongs. And on the other hand, criminal or
retributive justice.
Another aspect of the judicial function will be to make
objective assessments of actual or alleged externalities (side effects), such
as pollution or noise, which cause, or can reasonably be expected to cause,
damage to others. If appropriate, those that cause such externalities will be
made to compensate the individuals and groups affected by the damage they
caused, each in proportion to the amount of harm they suffer. The judicial
function will also be able to analyze and assess actual or alleged risks, in
much the same way as for externalities.
Secondary aims and functions
The secondary aims of just governance are upholding human
rights, and allowing maximum freedom for everyone. That freedom, of course,
must be tempered by individual responsibility for the effects of willed actions
on others.
The function that upholds rights would correspond, in
today’s terms, to a police force. Other aspects of the upholding rights
function would be the emergency services which today are often required, with
or without police, at or after incidents. Under the same heading, when
required, would come dealing with disasters such as floods, and defence against
invaders, military aggressors and violent gangs.
Local and emergency rules
There will, at times and in places, be a need to make what I
call “local rules.” These are sane, sensible, non-politicized conventions for
the benefit of all users of the public space (that is, space open to all) in
the local area. But local rules must be kept to a minimum.
There may also be a need to make temporary rules in the
event of a clear emergency, such as a flood or an epidemic. But the scope and
period of such rules must be as limited as possible.
A possible structure for just governance
I sketched out some ideas on a possible structure for just
governance in the third essay of the latest set. The following is a very brief
summary. Of course, any new system on this kind of scale will have to be
prototyped first; and the good ideas taken forward, and the less good modified.
So, the system may end up looking significantly different from my proposals.
Just governance will, by design, be de-centralized. The
communities, in which the governed live, will be small enough to produce
diverse “flavours” of community for people of different tastes. I have in mind
a town or small city, with a population range of a few thousands up to perhaps
a hundred thousand. Economically, different communities will tend to specialize
in different things. So, there will be much trade, both between neighbouring
communities and between those further apart. Moreover, free movement will be
the norm.
I envisage, first, local or neighbourhood organizations, on
a scale of a few hundred people. And second, community organizations, on the
scale of a town or small city. There will also be governance institutions, which
can provide services on a wider basis than just a single community. Anything,
which requires a larger scale of co-operation yet, will be handled through
alliances.
The neighbourhood
I envisage that the neighbourhood of just governance (NJG)
will be a voluntary society in a neighbourhood of a few hundred people, for
those who take an interest in just governance locally. Its main functions will
be to conserve the special characteristics of the local area, and to assess
possible changes to it, including the suitability of potential incoming
migrants. It will operate, in essence, by direct democracy.
The community
I envisage the community of just governance (CJG) to govern
a unit large enough to be economically viable in the free market. I envisage
that CJGs will probably be non-profit companies. I expect the remit of a CJG to
be closer to that of a town council than anything else today.
I would expect the CJG to organize those functions of just
governance which must be delivered at the local level. I expect the services to
include: Police (except detectives), firemen, paramedics and other first
responders. Maintaining a capability for military defence. Making and
administering local (and, at need, emergency) rules as required. Providing
premises and support staff for courts of just governance. And maintaining
pre-existing infrastructure in the public space, such as roads and footpaths.
In addition to regular discussions on CJG-level matters
among representatives from the NJGs, I expect there would be periodic (probably
yearly) meetings open to all community residents, something like a New England
open town meeting.
At the wider level
The institution, which I expect to deliver those services of
just governance that can be managed and delivered from outside any particular
CJG, I have dubbed the Society for Just Governance (SJG). An SJG will probably
be a non-profit company. It will be the nearest equivalent in just governance
to a government today.
It will be a project management and contracting
organization, using externally sourced skills, such as detectives, judges and
arbitrators, risk and cost-benefit assessors, diplomats and negotiators, and
quality auditors, to do the work. It will compete with other SJGs in the free
market.
How to pay for just governance
What an individual is expected to pay for just governance
should be in proportion to the benefit he or she gets from it. I see the
benefits provided by just governance – for example, protection of property – as
being in direct proportion to the individual’s total wealth. Thus, periodic
payments should be in proportion to the individual’s total wealth at the time.
Of the remaining current governmental functions, those services
which are necessary, but not part of core governance – such as welfare,
pensions, health care and education – need to be de-politicized, with control
being passed to those who provide those services. And new, just and more
flexible financial arrangements will have to be devised. Development of new
infrastructure will also need to be reviewed. I would expect that, under just
governance, most new infrastructure would be paid for by user fees, such as
tolls.
As an important feature of the system of payment for just
governance, there will be no taxes on incomes or on transactions. Nor will
there be any re-distributory or confiscatory taxation.
In the best of all possible worlds, just governance might be
funded, in an area with a common currency, without the need for any form of
taxation resembling today’s. This could be done by allowing the currency to be
inflated by a small percentage each month or year. About 1.5% a year (0.125% a
month) was my back-of-an-envelope figure for what might be needed to support
the core functions of just governance. This would affect all assets denominated
in the currency, so should produce the desired distribution of payments
according to wealth. But to work out how to make such a system practical goes
beyond my pay grade in economics.
The root of our problems
In the fourth essay of my latest set, I unveiled my
diagnosis of the root cause of our problems today. Simply put, the human
species, over the course of several thousand years, has split into two. And the
two branches have different, and incompatible, natures.
It is worth observing here that John Locke, when he described
our enemies as “degenerates” (no longer of their kind), was already a long way
towards understanding this!
Economic means versus political means
First, some philosophical background. The German Jewish
sociologist Franz Oppenheimer, in his book The State (first published in
German in 1908), made a very famous distinction between the economic means
of getting needs satisfied and the political means. I quote from the
English translation of his book:
“There are two fundamentally opposed means whereby man,
requiring sustenance, is impelled to obtain the necessary means for satisfying
his desires. These are work and robbery, one’s own labor and the forcible
appropriation of the labor of others… I propose in the following discussion to
call one’s own labor and the equivalent exchange of one’s own labor for the
labor of others, the economic means for the satisfaction of needs, while
the unrequited appropriation of the labor of others will be called the political
means.”
Oppenheimer also wrote: “All world history, from primitive
times up to our own civilization, presents a single phase, a contest namely
between the economic and the political means.” And: “The state is an
organization of the political means.”
Now, compare Oppenheimer’s view of history, as summarized
above, with my view of human history in the large, which I gave earlier. We are
very much along the same lines!
And as to the state? Oppenheimer was right. The state uses
the political means as its modus operandi. But, surprisingly to me, he
did not observe in addition that the very resources, that have been taken away
from us through the political means, can be used to make policies and take actions
that go against our interests in more ways than just economic. What the state
takes away from us, it can then use to violate our rights, or to oppress or tyrannize
us. Or, as John Locke put it, to “impoverish, harass or subdue” us.
Us and Them
I shall now compare and contrast the characteristics of those
on the two sides of the divide.
One side, which I call “we” or “us,” “human beings” or “human
beings worth the name,” has remained faithful to human nature as I have outlined
it above. Our natural way of thinking and doing is a bottom-up way. The
preferred habitat of our species is one in which every human individual has the
maximum chance to flourish, and to become happy and prosperous. That is, the
economic free market, supported by honest systems that maintain peace, uphold
human rights and freedoms, and deliver objective, individual justice for all.
The other side I call, variously, “they” or “them,” “Downers,”
“politicals” or “our enemies.” John Locke called them “degenerates,” a most apt
choice of word. For they have become estranged from us. Their nature is now different
from ours. Their way of thinking and doing is top-down. Their preferred habitat
is in positions of power and influence, direct or indirect, in a political
state. Or in some other top-down organization, such as religious, military or
big-company hierarchies, or organized criminal or terrorist gangs, or political
activist groups.
The dividing line, the blade that divides “us” from “them,” I
dub Oppenheimer’s Razor. We, by our nature, use the economic means in order to
get our needs satisfied. They use the political means. The two species are
physically very similar, even being able to mate with each other. But mentally,
and in preferred habitat and means of obtaining sustenance, the two are very
different.
Over the centuries, and in the last few decades in
particular, the two species have diverged so far, that the politicals have now
become actively parasitical on, and hostile and pestilent towards, us human
beings. And we, in our turn, are starting to push back against the predations
and provocations by our enemies.
The behaviours of the two species
Human beings are not perfect. But we at least strive to be peaceful,
truthful, honest, straightforward and respectful of the rights of other human
beings. We also strive to act in good faith. The great majority of human beings
worth the name are also prepared to “live and let live” in their dealings with
their fellows, and many actually manage to live up to this standard in
practice. In summary, we do our best to live up to our human nature.
In complete contrast, politicals often behave very badly
towards others. They indulge in lies, dishonesty, deception, arrogance,
hypocrisy, irresponsibility, evasion of accountability, aggression,
recklessness towards others, intolerance, bad faith, and violations of human
rights and freedoms. Rather than trying to live up to human nature, they live
down in the murky depths of their nature. They behave, for want of a
better word, like psychopaths.
Other evidence
In that fourth essay, I gave some further evidence to
support my case that human beings and politicals have diverged into two
separate species. I looked at the virtues and values, which are favoured by those
on the two sides of the divide. I looked at what those on the two sides tend to
fear and to hate. I found that I had no doubt at all that the human species has
now split into two sub-species, with two all but opposite sets of behaviours
which are natural to them.
I concluded my case as follows: “Our enemies have been the
beneficiaries of a bad political system, that instead of favouring honest,
productive human beings, has favoured the most dishonest and corrupt. Today,
they are doing everything in their power to keep this system going, at the
expense of, and to the hurt of, all human beings worth the name. We must bring
down the politicals, and the system that supports them, before they succeed in
bringing us down to their level.”
Parasites and pests
I identified, among the politicals, two overlapping
tendencies. Which I labelled parasites and pests.
Parasites use the resources they appropriate to enrich
themselves and their cronies, or to rake in money in order to implement their
pet schemes. They are bad enough. But pests go further. Pests (or, otherwise
put, vermin) want power for the sake of what they can do with it. Pests want to
control people, to persecute, and to screw up people’s lives. I gave an
overview of the characteristics of parasites and pests near the end of the
third essay of the last set.
Neither parasites nor pests are fit to be invited into any
community of human beings worth the name. They are traitors to human
civilization, and to the human species. They deserve to be kicked out of human
civilization, and denied all its benefits.
The war we’re in
We find ourselves embroiled today in a war. It is a war between,
on one side, human beings worth the name; and on the other, political parasites
and pests. This war is an existential struggle for, if I may use a religious
word, the soul of humanity.
Only one side can win this war. And I cannot conceive that
our enemies can possibly win in the long term. For if they did manage to reduce
us human beings to nothing more than serfs or slaves, their economy would
quickly collapse, taking them with it.
Thus, we must fight, each of us in our own way. We must
fight for humanity, for reality and rationality, for our rights and freedoms,
for justice. We human beings must join together in resisting the parasites and
pests. And when we have fought off their aggressions and forced them on the
back foot, we must strike back at them with all the might we can muster. And we
must bring them to justice.
The three mind-sets
At present, as I see things, there are three basic mind-sets
on display among human beings. There is the Downer mind-set, shared by the
political parasites and pests. There is a new mind-set, that is now starting to
fight back against our enemies that seek to destroy our civilization. And there
is a confused, angry, and yet fearful mind-set, which seems to be experienced today
by many ordinary people.
Our enemies’ mind-set
Above, I listed some of the psychopathic ways in which our
Downer enemies are behaving today. And earlier, when I discussed their top-down
philosophy, I gave some pointers towards their mind-set. They are arrogant;
they think they are superior to others. They are hypocritical; they think that
what they tell others to do doesn’t apply to them. They have little or no
concern for ethics, or for human rights. They lie and deceive, and avoid the
truth. They routinely deal in bad faith. They favour hype and fear over
rational analysis of the evidence. They want to smear, insult, and suppress the
views of, those who disagree with them. They are reckless, irresponsible and
intolerant, and they accept no accountability.
But I am coming to think that the lies, hype, fear and ad
hominems our enemies spout may be more than just propaganda tools. I think they may be genuinely afraid of
something. Deep down inside, do they perhaps feel panic and fear for their own
futures? Might they have divined, for example, that the political system, on
which their entire privileged way of life depends, is not sustainable? That the
state is, ethically, already bankrupt; and perilously close to financial
bankruptcy, too? And that, on its present course, it will soon fail?
This might well explain why so much that political
governments do today is directed towards getting in more, more, and more “revenue”
for their state. Why our enemies rant so much about “safety” and
“sustainability.” Why they think their scares are “existential” problems. Why everything
is “worse than we thought!” And why, every time people lose interest in one set
of scares, our enemies dream up new scares to replace them.
It could also explain why they refuse to acknowledge, or
even to look at, the facts. They don’t want anyone (least of all themselves) to
find out that their apocalyptic claims about climate change, or air pollution,
or whatever is the latest scare du jour, are unfounded! It could
explain why they brook no contrarian views, and why they so often seek to
suppress those views. Could it be, perhaps, that they have so much invested in
their scams, that they feel they can’t afford to let the truth come out?
It could also help to account for their mad, breathless rush
to get their plans implemented right now. Oh, and why is extinction
one of the things they are so worried about?
The Re-discovery mind-set
There is a new mind-set around today. It is starting to take
root among many people who are dissatisfied with politics today, including
myself. Already, two of its visible results are a new, and greatly
strengthened, pushback by ordinary people against government overreach, and a
new determination to fight hard for our human rights and freedoms. In the fifth
essay of my latest set, I devoted several pages to some details of this new
mind-set.
As I experience it, the new mind-set is moving in the same
direction as the new attitudes and ways of thinking, which became common during
the Renaissance. There is a sense of emergence, if not yet from the political
tyranny to which we are subjected, then at least from the mental tyranny of
thinking that the present system is natural, morally right and immutable. There
is a new sense of confidence in ourselves and our capabilities. There is a prospect
of better times ahead; albeit, that we still have a lot to do to get there.
The paradigm of the Renaissance was Discovery; of ideas both
old and new, of new places, of ourselves. The paradigm which underlies the new
mind-set, I think, is Re-discovery. We are starting to re-discover ourselves.
And the process of re-discovery, as with the Renaissance, will be a spiritual
revolution: a change for the better in the human spirit.
We will re-discover our Humanity, our nature as human
beings. We will re-discover that we are naturally good. We will re-discover
that this is our planet, and its resources are for us to use wisely, to
build a home and garden fit for a civilized species. We will re-discover our Reason
and our rationality. We will re-discover our “bullshit meters,” which enable us
to reject lies, hype and unfounded scares.
We will re-discover our human spirit, and our confidence in
ourselves. We will re-discover our consciences. We will re-discover the
built-in weather-vane or barometer, that gives us a sense of what is right and
wrong for us human beings to do. We will re-discover, and re-illuminate, the
crucial idea of human rights.
We will re-discover the ideas and values of the
Enlightenment. We will re-discover the ideal of governance for the benefit of,
with the consent of, and serving rather than ruling over, every human being among
the governed. We will re-discover our natural industry and productivity. We will
re-discover our ability to solve problems. We will re-discover honest business
and trade for what they are: the natural ways for human beings to relate to
each other in the public sphere.
We will come to judge individuals by their behaviour, rather
than by things outside their control. We will re-discover our membership in the
“great and natural community,” made up of all human beings worth the name. We
will come to care about all our fellow human beings; but only about our
fellow human beings. We will feel no concern at all for promoters, supporters,
makers or enforcers of bad laws that harm, or violate the rights of, innocent
people. Nor for liars or deceivers, parasites or pests, the arrogant or
hypocrites.
We will start to think outside the political paradigm. We will
reject the political state and its “sovereignty.” We will reject the “social
contract” falsehood. We will reject all the mainstream political parties. We
will reject bad laws, that go against the law that is natural to human beings;
and we will cease to obey them. We will reject political government, and we
will withdraw all our consent to it. We will reject, too, all the
supra-national political organizations, such as the UN and EU.
We will reject all those individuals in government, that
fail to serve the people they are supposed to be a benefit to, or that act with
dishonesty or in bad faith towards any of us. Or that harm us or violate our
rights, or support or co-operate with any political program that harms us or violates
our rights.
We will learn how to identify as individuals the parasites
and pests, both inside and outside government, that are responsible for our
troubles. We will re-discover that they are not us; they are not worthy
of the name human beings. We will see them as the moral Neanderthals they are. We
will understand that we have no reason to feel or to show any more compassion
or concern towards them, than they have shown towards us.
We will re-discover just what it is that we want from our
new world. We want human rights and dignity respected and upheld. We want self-determination
and independence for everyone. We want an end to oppression, exploitation, war,
bad laws, gross or persistent injustices, violations of rights and freedoms, the
mental miasma of lies, deceit, hype, gloom and fear, and the culture of
over-safety. We want an unrestricted free market economy. We want maximum
freedom to choose and to act, and objective, common-sense justice for all.
The “pawn” mind-set
When I talk to people today, I often find they are both
confused and angry about what the politicals are doing to them. But they don’t
see any way that they, as individuals, can do anything about it. And as a
result, they fear the future, because they can’t see any way forward out of the
current mess.
I sympathize with them, of course. But I am coming to think
that the reason it is so hard for people to work out what is best to do, is
that we need an ethical and mind-set change to take place, before it becomes possible
to create change in the political system. So, what I want to do is to help move
people’s mind-sets, away from the confused and fearful state in which they are
trapped, and towards the new mind-set I outlined above, and gave more detail on
in the fifth essay of my latest set. Ultimately, this is the major reason why I
have taken three years out of my life in order to write these screeds.
There is today a very numerous group of people, whom I call
“pawns.” These people are not parasites or pests, because they use the economic
means in most aspects of their lives. Nevertheless, they ally themselves with
the parasites and pests, by supporting the current political set-up. They do
this, primarily, by continuing to vote for mainstream political parties, and so
underwriting the charade of sham “democracy.”
I call them pawns, because that is what they are;
foot-soldiers, that allow themselves to be used by the political parasites and
pests for their own ends. But they also buy, with far too little scrutiny if
any at all, the narratives of the mainstream media. They do not have enough
skepticism about what they are told, or enough desire to find out the facts.
And they often let themselves be swayed by falsehoods or by emotional
manipulation.
Yet what would be the effects, if we could move sufficiently
many of these pawns towards our new mind-set of Re-discovering what we are? I
think that would be a key step towards kicking the parasites and pests out of
power, bringing them to the common-sense justice they deserve, and so changing
our world for the better.
What we want from our allies
Here is a brief list of what we want from those, whom we
seek to persuade to join our cause, and to help us set about building our new
world.
We want people to stop behaving like pawns. We want them to
stop voting for the “lesser of two evils” (or more than two). We want them to
reject the mainstream political parties – all those parties. We want
them to reject politics, as it is practiced today, altogether.
We want people to focus on the facts in any matter. We want
them to reject lies, hype, unfounded scares, and narratives that are not
grounded in reality. And those that purvey them.
We want people to judge others, not on the basis of who they
are, but by how they behave. We want them to tune in to the part of their
minds, that tells them what is right and what wrong for human beings to do. We
want them to seek, with all their might, to become economically productive, and
as self-sufficient as they can be.
We want people to reject arrogance, dishonesty, deceit, hypocrisy
and the other psychopathic behaviours, that our enemies have displayed towards
us. We need them to help us raise a tidal wave of anger, hatred and contempt
against the parasites and pests that have robbed us, oppressed us and violated
our human rights and freedoms. And we need them to help us get those parasites
and pests off all our backs. And so, to turn our world the right way up.
How to build the new world?
In that fifth essay, I put forward some suggestions for
how we might go about starting to build the new world. Partly tongue-in-cheek,
I described what I could do if I were to be invested with the absolute
monarchical power of a philosopher-king over the UK and all its people. Of
course, the leaders of a new, anti-establishment political movement might well find
it easier than I to reach a position from which they can kick-start the
process. Or even, maybe, leaders of an ethical movement; picking as its target,
perhaps, dishonesty, arrogance, hypocrisy, or any of the other inhuman
behaviours our enemies so often display.
But whichever way, it seems that radical new ideas and
actions will be required, in order to dismantle the political state and replace
it by a new and better system, without a period of anarchy, suffering and gross injustice
intervening. The key will be working out how, so to speak, to flush away the dirty
bath-water of the state without damaging the baby of Civilization.
Objectives and focus
But some of the things which will need to happen are clear.
I stated the objectives as follows: “To get rid of politics, bad policies and
bad politicians. Hugely to reduce the size of government, and the scope of what
it does. To withdraw from all international organizations and agreements, that
go against the interests of the human beings in the territory. To repeal all
bad laws, that are a drain on or a disbenefit to human beings. To end the
practices that have enabled parasites and pests to make gains at the expense of
human beings, and to hold those parasites and pests accountable for what they
have done. To move the laws of the territory closer and closer to the natural
law for human beings… And to move more and more towards a system of governance,
whose functions are restricted, as far as possible, to delivering peace and
justice. And in which everyone is treated, as far as practicable, as he or she
treats others.”
From the outset, the focus must be to undo all bad political
policies, and to hugely improve the honesty, impartiality, objectivity and
justice of everything governance does. To get rid of all restrictions on the
economy. To establish sane and sensible policies on energy and the environment.
To get rid of re-distributory and confiscatory taxation. To move closer and
closer to the ideal that what each individual pays for governance should be in
direct proportion to the benefit that he or she gets from it. And to eliminate
all dishonesty and corruption from governance, and to make the parasites and
pests provide full compensation to the human beings they drained, or harmed, or
both.
Cultural changes
I gave a list of some of the more detailed policies I might
put in place, if I had the power. I would quickly set in motion several
significant cultural and philosophical changes in the way governance works. I
would make it plain that governance exists only for the benefit of those who
pay for it. And of all those who pay for it, real wrongdoers excepted. I
would require that everyone in governance must always be totally honest towards
the people. And must always respect the human rights and dignity of those they
are supposed to be serving.
More specifically, I would ditch the perverted form of the
precautionary principle, returning it to “Look before you leap,” or even
“First, do no harm.” I would mandate objective, quantitative and unbiased risk-benefit
analysis and cost versus benefit analysis on all significant projects of governance.
I would mandate that projects in progress must be regularly audited. And I
would require that governance must always allow maximum freedom of choice for
everyone, and must never mandate a loss of backwards compatibility.
Policies
(More detail is available in the fifth essay of my last
set.)
I would withdraw from the United Nations and all its
agencies, except for peacekeeping activities. I would withdraw from the Paris
agreement, the Rio agreements, the IPCC, the WHO and all other environmental or
health projects in which the UN is or has been involved. I would immediately
suspend all green agenda policies for a period of 25 years, and end all
government funding, levies and other taxes, and subsidies for them. I would
suspend all these policies, together with air pollution “targets” and “limits,”
pending thorough, honest and objective reviews of all aspects of the policies. I
would ban green and “sustainability” activist organizations, including
companies which are members of such organizations.
I would sever links with the EU, preferring to deal one-on-one
with individual neighbour countries. But I would not, at least initially,
withdraw from the Council of Europe or its European Court of Human Rights, or
non-UN international organizations such as the World Trade Organization.
My foreign policies, broadly, would be to “live and let
live” with other countries willing to do the same. I would institute thorough
and objective reviews of military defence treaties, and in particular of the
future of NATO.
My policies on migration would be moderate, and always based
on respect for human rights and on the particular situation of each individual.
My environmental policies would aim to maximize the quality
of the human environment. All issues concerning the physical environment
would be dealt with by adapting to problems as and when they arise. All
analyses of future risks would be objective and honest. The approach to any
problem found in the physical environment would always be one of “polluter pays
compensation.” And compensation payments would be routed to the victims of the
nuisance, each in proportion to the harms they have suffered.
As to energy policies, I would immediately permit fracking
for gas, in any place in the territory where it is justified by the expected
nett benefits. And I would retain or restore permit schemes for new oil and gas
projects in the North Sea where they are appropriate. I would retain coal power
plants – with scrubbers – for as long as they are cost-effective. I would
abolish all subsidies for “renewable” energy sources. And I would lay out plans
to secure access for the people in the territory to abundant, affordable, fit-for-purpose,
reliable energy for the medium and longer terms. Both from nuclear power, and from
other sources.
I would move very quickly towards a low-tax, high-growth
economy. I would end all predatory or confiscatory taxation, and all taxation
that re-distributes wealth unjustly. I would repeal IR35 and all other laws
that have put individuals and small businesses at an unjust disadvantage, and
make those responsible for these policies compensate the victims. Looking to a
future in which the “public sector” will be greatly down-sized and eventually
abolished, I would create an economic climate friendly to new and small
businesses.
I would not make any immediate changes to welfare policies.
But in the longer term, I would seek to move welfare out of the remit of
governance.
I would recognize that the NHS must eventually be dismantled,
and its functions turned over outside governance to the people who provide the
services. But as with welfare, the change needs careful planning.
I would set in motion a long-term process of de-politicizing
education, with the eventual aim of transferring control over individual
schools to educators outside governance.
I would close down the BBC.
I would repeal all laws that permit police, or other
officials, legal privileges to do things that ordinary people may not. I would
cancel all laws “in the pipeline,” and repeal any recently made, that have had or
would have had an adverse effect on human rights or freedoms.
I would order post hoc cost-benefit reviews on all
laws imposed as a result of EU directives, which were not already covered by
the green policy reviews. I would repeal all collective limits and targets on
anything. I also would repeal all “safety” laws made since 1992, that were
based on the perverted form of the precautionary principle and the culture of
over-caution it led to. Including smoking bans.
I would end all anti-car policies. I would scrap the London
ULEZ, and its equivalents in other cities. I would order removed all low
traffic neighbourhoods, traffic filters, 15- and 20-minute cities, chicanes and
speed bumps. I would return the procedures to be used to set speed limits to
the rules in use prior to the Rio agreements of 1992. I would re-assess and
re-set all speed limits, which had been reduced since 1992, using those rules.
I would also progressively reduce subsidies for public transport, with an aim
eventually to phase them out entirely.
Risk reviews, cost-benefit reviews and historical audits
I see three types of reviews that will be necessary in order
to find out the full facts, and make the best decision as to how to proceed, on
each of the bad policies that have been imposed on us against our wills. These
include (at least) the suspended green policies, and the handling of COVID-19.
The reviews needed are risk reviews, cost-benefit reviews, and historical
audits.
The risk and cost-benefit reviews will be objective,
unbiased and quantitative. And they will be based entirely on the risks, costs
and benefits to the people whom governance serves, not on any political
considerations. They will also be accurate, to a degree well beyond what has
been normal for “government work.”
The historical audits will assess the full story of how, in
a supposed democracy, policies came to be imposed on everyone against the wills
of many. And with little or no hard evidence that the claimed problems were
real, or that the measures taken would actually solve the problem, or both. These
reviews will cover all aspects, including: Validity and honesty of the science.
The conduct of government and its advisors over the matter, with particular regard
to truthfulness, objectiveness and honesty. How the matters were presented to
the public. Openness (or not) to non-establishment views. And the conduct (or
not) of public debates over the matter.
On-going actions
My on-going reforms would be based around four main themes.
First, relentlessly driving down the size of government, and the scope of what
it does, at all levels, including territorial, devolved and local. Second,
bringing the parasites and pests to justice for their crimes, and making them
provide compensation to their victims. Third, laying the foundations for the
new way of governance in the territory. And fourth, doing what I can to help
move those elsewhere in the world towards better ways of governance.
Over a period of some years, every government department,
employee, contract, project, and funding stream would be reviewed. These
reviews would, in the first instance, be aimed at reducing or eliminating
wasteful or toxic functions and individuals from government. Government as a
whole, and in particular its most overpaid and most dishonest officials and
bureaucrats, would be slimmed down by at least an order of magnitude. The
“civil service” would be decimated, and far more. But the reviews would also collect
information, on the basis of which to identify those individuals that have
behaved as parasites or pests.
As to bringing the parasites and pests to justice, there
would be three main prongs to my reforms. First, “politicker pays
compensation.” That is, removal of parasites and pests from government
positions, compensation to those they wronged, and punishment where
appropriate. Those that have harmed or violated the rights of innocent people,
or supported or co-operated with political programs that harmed them or
violated their rights, would be dismissed, and their pensions cancelled.
Second, I would set up investigations into those
organizations nominally independent of government, which have or may have
violated human rights, or used politics for their own gain or for political
goals. Again, the politickers would be made to pay.
Third, I would invite everyone in the territory to report
any injustices or violations of rights, to which they have been subjected,
either by government itself or by politically oriented third parties. This
would obtain compensation for the victims of bad laws or policies like IR35 or ULEZ,
as well as people who have been mis-treated by police, bureaucrats or other
officials.
Through these three sets of programs, anyone that has used
politics for personal gain or for the gain of their cronies, or to unjustly
harm anyone or violate their rights, will be subjected to justice. That is, to
common-sense justice; being treated as they have treated others.
The Great Restitution
The Great Restitution is the name I give to the program of
reparations for political crimes. It will assess the compensation payments owed
to each individual who has been harmed by political parasites or pests. It will
apportion the payments owed by each perpetrator, whether parasite, pest or
both. This process will also identify what, if any, criminal punishments are
appropriate for each of the perpetrators. It will look well beyond politicians
and government employees as potential perpetrators.
Parasites and pests, including warmongers, will be treated
with the severity appropriate to their offences. I envisaged (partly, but not
entirely, tongue-in-cheek) “parasite pens” and pest pits” as places of
punishment for these offenders. Either way, just governance will have power to
confiscate offenders’ assets, or to take most of their earnings, or both, to
provide compensation to their victims. As I said earlier, common-sense justice
is a hard taskmaster.
And pests and warmongers, in particular, will be subjected
to punishments appropriate to their crimes. Warmongers may well be extradited
for justice at the hands of those they ordered assaults on. And if anyone agitated
for hurtful policies to be imposed on others, we’ll give them what they want –
and we’ll give it to them good and hard. “Net zero” promoters, for example,
will be made to live net zero. If a net zero lifestyle – as I strongly suspect
– isn’t economically sustainable, then at least we will be rid of them.
Moving to the new way
I would set up a special commission, to review in detail
ideas of human rights from the past and the present, and produce a new,
comprehensive Bill of Human Rights for all human beings worth the name. This
would be back-to-backed by a list of obligations, following which will bring
about an environment in which all these human rights are properly respected.
This would form the basis of a first draft of the Convivial Code. I would also
encourage the construction of prototypes, in which groups of volunteers can try
out aspects of the new way of governance.
In parallel with this, I would organize the core functions
of governance – such as courts, police and military defence – into structures
compatible with the distributed, networked system of just governance for which
we will be aiming.
At some point, it will become plain that the new way of
governance has been tried and tested enough, that we can dismantle the shell of
the old. Then, all we have to do is formally close down the state, move entirely
to the new way of governance, and we’ll be free at last. And once one state has
been successfully dismantled and replaced by a new and better way of governance,
there will be increasing pressure on other states to follow suit. Then shall
humanity world-wide be free from war and oppression at last.
And, once states, and the parasites and pests they harbour, have
been purged from every land, fixing poverty among human beings will become
easy. Let’s use our natural creativity, and let’s trade freely with our
fellows, to bring prosperity, happiness and fulfilment to every human being
worth the name. Let’s take control of our planet, as is our nature. And let’s
race away into a peaceful, free, dynamic, prosperous, truly sustainable future.
We will, indeed, have turned our world the right way up at
last.
Appendix: References
Here are links to some of my writings over the years.
To my latest set of five philosophical essays, “Time to Take
Back our Civilization from the Parasites and Pests.”
1.
Part One: Indictments. https://libertarianism.uk/2021/11/13/time-to-take-back-our-civilization-from-the-parasites-and-pests/
2.
Part Two: History, large and small. https://libertarianism.uk/2022/12/17/time-to-take-back-our-civilization-from-the-parasites-and-pests-part-two/
3.
Part Three: My Liberty Philosophy. https://libertarianism.uk/2023/01/18/time-to-take-back-our-civilization-from-the-parasites-and-pests-part-three-my-liberty-philosophy/
4.
Part Four: Diagnosis. https://libertarianism.uk/2023/06/21/time-to-take-back-our-civilization-from-the-parasites-and-pests-part-four-diagnosis/
5.
Part Five: Cure. https://libertarianism.uk/2023/07/23/time-to-take-back-our-civilization-from-the-parasites-and-pests-part-five-cure/
You can find the choral music, which sets the verses at
the end of Part Five, at https://libertarianism.uk/2023/07/26/peace-and-justice-for-ever/.
To the two stand-alone essays, which preceded the set of
five on climate change:
1.
https://libertarianism.uk/2021/01/24/green-industrial-revolution-or-great-leap-backward/
2. https://libertarianism.uk/2022/07/31/on-the-uns-sustainable-development-goals/
To the set of five essays on climate change, “Climate
crisis? What climate crisis?”
1.
https://libertarianism.uk/2023/03/15/climate-crisis-what-climate-crisis-part-one-the-evidence/
(also at https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/03/15/climate-crisis-what-climate-crisis-part-one-the-evidence/)
2.
https://libertarianism.uk/2023/04/12/climate-crisis-what-climate-crisis-part-two-where-we-are-in-the-uk-today/
(also at https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/04/12/climate-crisis-what-climate-crisis-part-two-where-we-are-in-the-uk-today/)
3.
https://libertarianism.uk/2023/04/13/climate-crisis-what-climate-crisis-part-three-the-back-story-up-to-1992/
4.
https://libertarianism.uk/2023/04/14/climate-crisis-what-climate-crisis-part-four-the-back-story-since-1992/
5.
https://libertarianism.uk/2023/04/15/climate-crisis-what-climate-crisis-part-five-the-case-of-the-missing-cost-benefit-analysis/
To the six original essays, which describe my philosophical
system as it was in 2021 (much in these has now been superseded):
1. https://libertarianism.uk/2021/06/19/six-thinkers/
2. https://libertarianism.uk/2021/06/24/the-rhythms-of-history/
3. https://libertarianism.uk/2021/06/29/two-world-systems/
4. https://libertarianism.uk/2021/07/04/the-i-dimensions/
5. https://libertarianism.uk/2021/07/09/the-we-dimensions/
6. https://libertarianism.uk/2021/07/19/us-and-them/
To some of my other essays which have been re-published at
WattsUpWithThat.com, “the world’s most visited website on global warming and
climate change.”
• https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/04/20/our-common-future-revisited-how-did-the-roadmap-for-the-green-juggernaut-fare-over-30-years/
• https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/11/the-social-costs-of-air-pollution-from-cars-in-the-uk/
• https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/01/11/on-science-and-nonscience/
• https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/01/22/on-the-precautionary-principle/
• https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/02/29/on-cambridge-university-post-modernism-climate-change-oppenheimers-razor-and-the-re-enlightenment/
• https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/17/on-externalities-integrated-assessment-models-and-uk-climate-policies/
