| I now wish to turn to what I had intended to do in any case. I want to consider the kind of "manifesto" I think would be more useful. I feel somewhat stampeded because I do not think I am anywhere near ready to do that: I would have preferred far more discussion and exploration before committing to anything concrete: but this has moved on and so I will make a first stab at it here.
I want to say at the outset that I do think any manifesto needs some detail. But not what NathanSanders appears to have assumed I meant by detail. Not the nuts and bolts of a method: but detail as to why the basics are desirable, and indeed why they are basic at all. Inclusion of that leaves it open to debate, and I think that is a good thing
So the first thing I would say is that I think the system should be a democratic one.
The way I see it, everybody knows about the issues. They may not know about the same issues as you: they may not think the same issues are important as you do. But the notion that they do not know where their own interests lie is an odd one. In the end that is what people pursue, and so every one of them must be included. That is the point of democracy: it founds on a hypothesis that if everyone can have an equal influence on the uses of power, they will not be wholly exploited, for they will not allow that to happen, and they have the means to prevent it.
It seems to me inescapable that each of us is better informed about our own circumstances than about those of others: and that influences what we believe to be important. It also limits how far we can see the consequences of what we propose on the lives of those who are in different circumstances. We are not very good at that, even when we are trying: hell, we are not very good at seeing the consequences of what we do on ourselves, a lot of the time.
Of course people can be manipulated: We can certainly try to apply critical thinking, and that will help, but we can only apply it to the facts we have. And none of us have very many, in the scheme of things: government covers all sorts of things and we cannot know about them all: or even most of them. But there are limits to manipulation: there comes a point (it often seems surprisingly far down the line, admittedly) when the adverse consequences of policy on their lives cannot be spun or denied. It is ofen said that people do not starve in democracies: there is a chicken and egg question there, and it is not universal; but I think it is broadly true, and it is broadly a consequence of the democracy itself.
The second basic principle I would suggest is that each individual has equal worth..
From this it follows that all the people should be able to live with dignity, and they are entitled to the support of the community in achieving that. There are fundamental things which, if denied, universally preclude that: food, shelter, clothing, clean water, protection from violence, education, health care, dentistry, the ability to partake of those goods and services which are the norm in that society. Not an exhaustive list by any means, but this is intended to serve as a yardstick against which any policy proposal should be measured. Before anything is adopted we should be sure that it will not deprive any citizen of those basics, and we should be sure they have those basics without being financial wizards: because most of us are not. The industrialised countries are rich. This should be well within the capacity of any of those states to ensure, and if there is some reason why they cannot then there should be no reduction in the standards of any group below that minimum, unless every individual is similarly affected. A corollary of that is that these things need to be exempt from the democratic process: the protection of minorities from the tyranny of the majority is not at odds with democracy, though it is a constraint on it. Obviously there needs to be a means of securing those rights if they are lost either by accident (because voters missed some consequence of their votes) or by design (because some group managed to manipulate people into missing something like that):and so there would have to be an explicit legal route to enforce the rights. And it would have to be free, and quick.
That gives rise to the third principle: all decisions should be taken at the lowest possible level consonant with preservation of full citizens rights. So, if one person is deprived of the fundamental rights I just described they should be able to regain those through a simple and very local process. It might be that whatever caused the loss would have to be dealt with at a remove: but the restoration of them needs nothing big, and the neighbourhood should be fully capable of dealing with the problem. In turn that means that there has to be some very local tier of government or bureaucracy with power to take all decisions which can be reasonably effected there. The dangers of partiality are not lost on me: there is always potential for the witch hunt. But that is not worse than what we have now given the manufacture of the "underclass" which has necessarily accompanied the creation of the plutocracy. There have to be safeguards, certainly. Better ones than we have now. One possible solution is that any such claim should be met in full while the decision is taken and while it is under appeal, if it is denied.
The rule of law is sacrosanct All citizens would have equal protection under the law, and in order to effect this lawyers would be employed by the state (at whatever level) as well as judges. Whether they could also have private practice (as doctors do now) is for discussion: but access to the law should be free at the point of need, as health care is. This is because equality before the law cannot be achieved if it is too expensive for some. On the face of it this is actually covered by the "equal worth" provision: but I wanted to put it separately because the rule of law is is a benefit for the community more directly than food for the individual is: given that it is the area which regulates the position of those accused of crime and of victims of crime.
Once a state can meet the needs for dignity under the preceding provisions there should be an explicit committment to securing those same rights for citizens of other states. Thus the principle is that we are all citizens of the world.. I do not think that we can move directly to such principles from where we are now: but I do think we can take the steps in that direction which are open to us, at least within our own borders. So legislation should be considered in light of the effects elsewhere: and the actions of individuals or companies should be open to challenge on that basis. This would include actions which tend to increase famine: such as commodity trading in food which we have previously discussed. If that leads to famine anywhere, the people who make those trades should be subject to sanctions. I do not underestimate the practical difficulty of that: but as a principle I think it is important.
Most of this is predicated on the existence of the nation state. I am not wedded to that and I certainly think that some things should be subject to international law: but for me the most important thing we face at present is the transfer of power to business from the nation state; because business is not subject to democratic control. That transfer is a consequence of the relative wealth of states v companies: that needs to be reversed. We were faced with a stark choice recently: bankrupt business or bankrupt the state. We made the wrong choice. So restoration of the supremacy of the power of the democratic body is another princiiple we should adopt. That will not be easy, but neither is it impossible. I do not know enough about the mechanisms available but it is certainly something which I would see as essential
Some of this can be achieved through politics: indeed there is no other way. But what I suppose I am suggesting is that these are principles which should be enshrined in a constituion so that they do not change when the party in power changes. Any policy proposal should be measured against these yardsticks because the purpose of politics is to allocate resources and that should not be a free for all.
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