Get Over Your Industrial Complex
From the monthly archives:
Everyone agrees that the American economy has transformed from an industrial base to an information one, so why is our society still structured as if industrialization never ended? It’s as if we’ve invented fire but refuse to use it to cook. Let’s start cooking.
We all want the same things – security and high quality social [...]
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“The spirit that sustained this nation for more than two centuries lives on in you. It’s people.” (Barack Obama, 1/27/10) Never before in the history of humanity have we, the people, been able to unite comprehensively to solve our collective problems. There is no longer any need for us to organize the deployment of social [...]
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America was populated during two rounds of mass immigration. The first was during the first ice age approximately 13000 years ago when people from Asia crossed the glaciers that connected modern Russia to Alaska. The second round began in the 1600s and continued until World War Two. Much of this immigration was legal. Since the [...]
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One of the central tenets of economics is that trade creates wealth. Any restriction on trade reduces people’s capacity to create wealth. People who can’t create wealth through trade will inevitably try to steal wealth through violence. Thus, everyone in the world has an incentive to enable others to create wealth. Truly wealthy people view [...]
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Our criminal policy must find the two correct balancing points between order and freedom, imprisonment and rehabilitation. Finding these points requires compromise. On one hand, we could ensure that everyone was safe by placing everyone in a cage guarded by the state. On the other hand, we could ensure everyone was free by eliminating all [...]
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The implementation of a simple, clear and consistent carbon tax plan will spur investment in alternative energy sources. The proceeds from a carbon tax could could invested in government infrastructure projects that reorient our society for a low carbon future or pay for voucher programs.
Developing and deploying smart grids so communities can share energy resources [...]
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No one knows if humans are are contributing to global climate change. Both sides have legitimate fears about the effects of climate change on society. We can pursue a middle course that satisfies all parties.
Climate change believers fear that our rapid release of hundreds of millions of years of carbon stored in coal, oil and [...]
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The health of our democracy depends on our citizen’s ability to understand how their government acquires and deploys the people’s resources.
Well formulated taxes aren’t evil, they’re exceptionally useful. A well formulated tax raises revenue for the government and regulates trade. To achieve both of these objectives, compliance must be easy and the people must view [...]
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No where is the industrial convention stronger than in our education system. All course material is determined by an individual’s age, ending promptly at 18. All schooling takes place between 9am-5pm, Monday-Friday, September-June. Students are judged on a linear point scale that goes from bad to good.
Technology is making this system more and more irrelevant [...]
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Our current healthcare system is staggeringly inefficient because it is so heavily regulated by the government. These regulations, many of which were written by the largest healthcare and pharmaceutical corporations, have created massive barriers of entry so only organizations with expansive compliance departments can serve the public. The system is unsalvageable.
A sensible health care policy [...]
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Parties Over
by Walther on January 30, 2010
in Commentary
When asked why she voted for the GOP candidate for senate, a lifelong Massachusetts Democrat said she wanted to send a message to her party that she was upset.
The American people are upset. Very upset. The war $700+ billion dollar war continues. The $700+ billion bailout saved Wall Street by further crippling the middle class. [...]
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