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Czcibor
4th December 2012, 19:43
Possible disclaimers and clarifications:
* My point here is not to try convince anyone to anything. But, rather get a question "how do you think?" or "which policies would you suggest?".
* I was wondering whether to place this topic more on media topics. However, I decided to err on safety and place it here, so no one could complain that any of my question is in implicit way improper.
* I need the answers for purpose of RPG scenario (yes, a Role Play Game) in SF post apocalyptic setting.

Yes, seriously I need input for game purposes. I want to have a question answered from left wing perspective, and not what according to people of different ideology left wing should believe in. (I was also afraid that I would either select unrealistically pragmatic ideas, or make opposite error and select ideas that are interesting from story reasons, but practically no one would support them seriously)

OK, the situation looks as the following:
You have approximately 500 000 like-minded people (from outsider perspective, in practice there would be quite many ideological streams of left, that may after closer inspection consider each other as heretics, ;) especially with those more anarchist leaning). You escaped (by supernatural means) to a habitable planet.*
You had to escape from impending doom that endangered Earth.

Assets:
- natural resources - abundant*
- human resources - not perfect match for your needs, but still quite good skills
- capital resources - terribly scarce, you were unable to take much stuff
- food - so far can be hunted/fished quite easily, though moving towards agriculture soon would be necessary
- technology - nominally early XXIst century, though because of population number there is risk of technological regression

A discussion concerning future political and economic system started. What would you advice?

1) Political system? (direct/indirect democracy? centralised/federal? Anything else?)
2) Taxes? (or any other way to maintain state apparatus like each person is supposed to do work for collective one day a week?)
3) Money? (Emitted by central bank? Ration stamps? Labour vouchers? Irrelevant in gift economy?)
4) Law and order? (How would police force look like, sentencing and punishments)
5) Form of organization of production? (Centrally planed? Cooperatives? As long as not too big company - free market?)
6) Which parts of safety net would be the priority? (and how terribly scare resources at start be protected against free riders)
7) Trade unions or positive discrimination? (I mean would such think be still endorsed, or it would be automatically considered that they were necessary in the past but no longer needed)
8) Retirement system? (to what extend pensions would be based on previous contributions of individual)
9) Any other interesting laws suggested?

Conscript
4th December 2012, 21:44
1) Political system? (direct/indirect democracy? centralised/federal? Anything else?)

Bourgeois republic. I think saying anything else would be arbitrary, with such limited amount of people what need is there for federalism, for example? Or with a big distinction between town and country, a different form of governance might need to be considered.

It's about managing the affairs of the society's constituent, capital, and that means responding to conditions we can't necessarily predict.


2) Taxes? (or any other way to maintain state apparatus like each person is supposed to do work for collective one day a week?)

I'd say preferably revenue made from state owned capital (production of high tech stuff, like automobiles and radios, should be owned and perhaps leased by the state) and use taxes to help fund new investments.


3) Money? (Emitted by central bank? Ration stamps? Labour vouchers? Irrelevant in gift economy?)

Money produced by a central bank, owned by the state.


4) Law and order? (How would police force look like, sentencing and punishments)

Pretty much the same as it is today except I don't think having paramilitary units like SWAT or a standing army is necessary. A state militia would be more preferable.


5) Form of organization of production? (Centrally planed? Cooperatives? As long as not too big company - free market?)

I think any real industry and technical production should be owned and managed by the state. It'd be the home of humanity's last real collection of capital and a safeguarded leftover of the past.

All the farming and craftswork that would arise should be left to the petty bourgeois.


6) Which parts of safety net would be the priority? (and how terribly scare resources at start be protected against free riders)

Unemployment, state funded family incentives, labor codes, disability, retirement funds, all that jazz.


7) Trade unions or positive discrimination? (I mean would such think be still endorsed, or it would be automatically considered that they were necessary in the past but no longer needed)

Full unionization and integration into the state system. I don't think there's any worth in leaving them to the mercy of commodification and the market.


8) Retirement system? (to what extend pensions would be based on previous contributions of individual)

Yes to retirement funds. I don't think you can be specific without being arbitrary and ignorant of conditions.


9) Any other interesting laws suggested

I think citizenship should be a transparent thing. No need to make being part of the remnants of human an exclusive club and encourage nationalism.

The Garbage Disposal Unit
4th December 2012, 22:18
Go read Ursala K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed, assuming that isn't already your inspiration for this.

Czcibor
5th December 2012, 18:06
Bourgeois republic. I think saying anything else would be arbitrary, with such limited amount of people what need is there for federalism, for example? Or with a big distinction between town and country, a different form of governance might need to be considered. Assuming that's a purely matter of amount of people, then indeed there would be no point in anything different from single, centralized state. However, if actually there would be high amount of mutually exclusive ideas within society (from hard line centrally planned system, to terribly moderate social democracy, to hard line greens, and to desperate attempts of anarcho-socialism), neither very high willingness to compromise nor to bully other side, then some kind of federation actually could be the working solution.



Full unionization and integration into the state system. I don't think there's any worth in leaving them to the mercy of commodification and the market. What do you mean by integration? Would you allow independent (from state) trade unions?


Yes to retirement funds. I don't think you can be specific without being arbitrary and ignorant of conditions. What concerning world description shall I clarify?


Go read Ursala K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed, assuming that isn't already your inspiration for this.

No, it wasn't so far an inspiration. I was less trying and idea of dichotomy, and more a case where group of people with different mindsets had a chance to develop a system separately. (So far I have rough idea for 2 different theocracies, one right wing leaning federal republic, one absolutist monarchy, one feudalism. And one very detailed description of terribly pragmatic meritocracy.)

However, you have a point, I should read it.

Czcibor
15th December 2012, 16:26
So no-one else would help me how to design a semi-idealized left wing world? :(