Fixing Humankind Simply Put: The Just Society

Over the past few years, I watched many interesting documentaries clearly depicting the greed of humankind such as Let's Make Money and Darwin's Nightmare. They helped open my eyes to a part of the economic reality of which most of us are unaware. However, after watching an interview
with the economic hit man John Perkins. I have decided that I have seen enough. I mean, enough to start thinking about a solution to this crazy economic world which a few of us has created to probably benefit the same few of us.

I have been thinking about this idea for a little while and I still haven't come up with a full blown solution to the problem. Hopefully, as I write this post, I will start asking myself the right questions and filling up the holes. Otherwise, I will let the reader fill up the blanks or request me to fill them up.

In a previous post, I have alluded to the idea that "Human existence and civilization is the endless conflict between nature and nurture". This could also be called lazy-man rule or the least-amount-of-effort rule. I identify better with the first name. It is also more concise, so I will stick with it for the remainder of the post.

From my point of view, an effective economic model for humans must be able to find a reasonable solution for dealing with the lazy-man rule, for it is this rule that makes us want more and more with the least amount of effort, even if laws need to be "bent" or broken. In fact, this model cannot be purely economic, but rather social, politic and economic, because these three subjects are so intertwined in defining how our society works. It is going to be difficult to explain any point related to one of these three aspects governing our society without mentioning its implications on the other two.

Moreover, and perhaps, more importantly, this model should give everyone the same amount of fair treatment. After all, the fundamental motivation of living in society is so that all of us can be better off than if we were on our own out in the world. And to emphasize the importance of this aspect of the the socio-politic-economic model I am about to propose, I am going to call it The Just Society Model (JSM) or, if referring to the results of its application to humankind, The Just Society. I also like this name because it is a subtle reminder for myself to write just what is needed to explain the model, since I tend to be rather prolific at times. After all, the simplest solutions tend to be more well accepted and implementable than complicated ones.

In summary, the JSM will hopefully be able achieve the following two goals:

1. Mitigate the existence of the lazyman rule;
2. Set a foundation of fair treatment across all aspects of society. 

That being said, I am certain that most of the readers will think that the model will either not go far enough or go way to far to accomplish these goals. I will let the readers decide on what the consequences of implementing such model are. And if at the end of reading this, the reader thinks the author is a lunatic, well, I hope the reading of it will at least have served as an amusement for the reader in his/her spare time. :)

By now, the same reader must have realized that this Just Society topic is going be a long one. Yes, indeed. It will require many  posts to be fully covered, since it is going to contain a multitude of considerations about our current society, as well an equally large set of  propositions for socio-politic-economic improvements, which are, more often than not, frail and ingenuous (No, not at all. Actually, ingenious! :) ).

In this post, I am going to start with a list of the core ideas or tenets this model will base itself upon. In the following posts I will then elaborate more on sub-topics and refer back to this list.

Tenets for a Just Society

Perhaps predictably, these tenets borrow ideas from the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the ten commandments, but I believe they go a little further and broader than those. Perhaps, they are simply less concise! The tenets are the following:

1. All citizens have the right of access to basic resources, namely: potable water, food, shelter, sanitation, health treatment, safety, energy, work and leisure.
   
2. All citizens with basic education have the right to participate in socio-political decisions. These citizens also have the right to assume socio-political managerial positions.
   
3. All citizens have the right to form and participate in gatherings of any purpose (e.g.,  familiar, communitarian, sports-related, etc.) as long as all participating members agree upon the gathering norms and take responsibility for the consequences of such gatherings. Gatherings norms should not go against the societal tenets.
   
4. All citizens have the right to basic and higher education.
   
5. Once adult age is reached, and unless deemed incapable, all citizens must contribute to the improvement and maintenance of society. 
   
6. Unless deemed incapable, all citizens must complete the basic education level, which shall include not only classes in arts, sciences and languages, but also moral, ethics, politics, economics, philosophy and religions.
   
7. All citizens must respect other citizens' freedom of expression, religion, and philosophy.
   
8. All citizens must always put their best effort to act fairly and tell the truth as far as they are aware of it.
   
9. A citizen must always look to help other citizens. He must not intentionally act in any way that harms another citizen, unless as a consequence of societal punishment for breaking these tenets. Euthanasia is permitted as long as the euthanized citizen is not deemed incapable to make such a decision.
   
10. In situations of scarcity of basic resources (see 1), citizens must fairly share their basic resources to guarantee that other citizens also have access to them.
    
11. Citizens may be awarded with special resources as elected by the majority of other citizens that participate in the same community at different geopolitical levels based on their contributions to societal progress towards achieving these tenets. 
    
12. Citizens that do not comply with these tenets lose their rights and benefits that are provided by these same tenets. A three infraction lenience system should be applied. A re-inclusion system should also be provided for transgressors.
    
13. For cases not covered by these tenets, compassion, tolerance and common-sense applies.

These tenets are visibly divided into rights (1 - 4), obligations (5-10) and relational and plan-B tenets (11 and 13).

I gave some thought on preparing these tenets to ensure they covered all important areas our society, but, again, I might have missed something. I will let the reader comment on them while I continue to detail how these are going to be used in the remodeling of our society into a Just Society.