Blog posts about Celebration Society government
Shock therapy is a concept proposed by some economists before the Soviet union collapsed. Essentially, it’s the idea that a command and control economy should be immediately dismantled, to be replaced by market mechanisms. Adam Smith cautioned against this, and it was a disaster in Russia. People who lack a culture of individual responsibility will…
I’ve always viewed a Celebration Society as a collaborative process. After all, if people don’t collaborate in its creation, how will they feel any sense of ownership? When I wrote the book, it was basically the pulling together of a lot of different ideas from a lot of different people. I didn’t really create very…
As my wife recently pointed out, there is a particular error to which meritocracies are prone. While they start out with clear principles favoring merit as the basis for advancement in society, inevitably some of those in exalted positions come to believe themselves inherently superior, rather than superior by virtue of past merit. This fall…
Some critics of a Celebration Society believe that everyone should be a Citizen. In my view, that diminishes the importance of the title and office. In modern democracies, citizenship is a birthright. As such, its powers and responsibilities often remain little known or taken for granted. While a society can force people to learn these–and,…
While some believe that money is necessary to motivate behavior, this is false. Significant organizations exist that operate on the basis of voluntary, mutually supportive service. That service is unpaid, and can be highly effective. One prominent example is Toastmasters. Toastmasters was founded in 1924 —almost a century ago. It has grown from nothing to…
“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried.” ~Winston Churchill With all due respect to Churchill, that’s not quite correct. Democracy may be better than other present day systems, but a system once existed that led its people to world naval dominance, a culture that remains greatly…
(I have touched upon this topic in another blog and in the book. I regard it as more important than I have previously been able to do justice, and indeed beyond what I am capable of doing now. This is a topic that we will have experts advising, so the initial residents/founders have as complete…
When one paid worker appears or disappears in a community, it causes what economists call a “multiplier effect”. This has historically been estimated at 5 times the salary of the worker. Here’s how it works: if a person earning an income enters a community, that worker will then demand various goods and services. The providers…
In this world, however much we might wish it otherwise, there is no perfection to be found. Every beautiful thing has its limitations or deficiencies. Even mathematics has Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems. So, too, must a Celebration Society be imperfect. This is not to say that I regard it as falling short of being utopian, for…
Those of us who are old enough will remember the 1950s, when “Japanese import” meant balsa wood trinkets. Several decades later, the first Japanese cars started appearing in the US. They were widely derided as cheap looking, rust-prone tin cans, at first. No longer. In recent years, Japanese cars have led the world in reliability…