The Socialists and "Economic Democracy"

Economic Democracy. Sounds pretty appealing doesn't it? And it sure is...on the surface. Here is the definition from Wikipedia:

===================

Economic Democracy is David Schweickart's term for a form of market socialism that embodies three key ideas:

*Democratic management of each productive enterprise by the workers
*Democratic management of capital investment by a form of public banking
*A (mostly) free market for goods, raw materials, instruments of production, etc.

The firms and factories are owned by society and managed by the workers. These enterprises, so managed, compete in markets to sell their goods. Profit is shared by the workers. Each enterprise is taxed for the capital they employ, and that tax is distributed to public banks, who fund expansion of existing and new industry.

===================

So in essence Economic Democracy means abolishment of private property in case the property happens to be some of the things listed above. Are we surprised? Nope...

About the so called morality

What we call morality is really an emergent phenomenon, coming from the biological system that we are part of. We understand it as morality, but it is really a something that has not proved detrimental (some would even say it has even been beneficial) to our species.

One could theorise that when a speices reaches a certain level of self-awareness it becomes practical for the brain to enshroud behaviour that helps the speices to expand* by covering it in feelings of pleasure and "this is right" in order not to confuse the animal. Morality is really not much different than the 'drive to have kids' or 'the need to take care of the kids'. And just as these two phenomena, there will be (due to biological diversity) people that do strange things that are outside of the program and clearly detrimental. (Imagine a mother killing her young or a person commiting a murder.

To think that moral from the beginning is something that we have received from some external source is clearly not needed or even likely.


*In the expression 'helps the speices to expand' I include such things as 'promote stability in the society' in a general sense and also 'expand in numbers sustainably'.

X-type test drive

Today I test drove a Jaguar x-type 2.5 V6.

All in all I must say I am impressed. Since I own a XJR I might be a little bit biased, but nevertheless. The build quality felt solid and the handling was impressive. The ride was also quite smooth. The only question I have is about the rust. I saw som tendencies to surface-rust at the bottom of the "wheel-house" and for a car that is 4 years that might be a bad sign. The engine wasn't to exiting, but then again we were 4 people in the car and it had 4-wd. It was very quiet though and that should be nice for driving longer hauls.

I am surprised that Jaguar has not launched a x-type R. It would be really cool with a 300+ HP supercharged version that could compete with the M3 from BMW.

Build more nuclear powerplants

To not build more nuclear power-plants is simply irresponsible. Why? The price of oil has an impact on the economy. (Transportation, heating, oil based products and so on.) It also has an impact on our freedom of movement. (The price of gasoline.) The more independent of oil we can make ourselves, the less impact it will have on us. This is why it is the duty of the western civilization to expand the use of nuclear power while at the same time increase research into solar- and fusion-power. This way we not only stand clear of being dependent on crazy dictatorships in the middle-east but can also increase our standard of living.

Ideally a hydrogen based economy like that planned in Iceland would be the preferred choice, but remember that the hydrogen has to come from somewhere.