Organize a Society

[Prozerran]

Imagine that a large portion of the world's population dies from a global event (i.e. a plague, natural disaster, etc). Pockets of the world's population have survived in different regions, and in your particular area, the group of people have asked you to lead them in rebuilding society. How would you proceed?

Would you try to reorganize society along the same lines of democracy, free-market capitalism, and nationalism? Or would you implement something different? What would you do differently, and how would it take effect in the short term as well as the long term? Would you stick to the tenants of the constitution (i.e. all people have inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...) or would you create a new constitution?

Basically, you have the freedom within the group to create and mold a society in whatever way you see fit, and you have the full support of the group, people looking to you to put something into motion. What would that be?

[Oblongato]

My first requirement would be to make the society secular. Only when all are equal under a set of logical secular principles would it be possible to have anything like freedom of religion (or freedom of lack thereof) without excluding or favoring any group. (And all organizations and companies that make a profit would be taxed on that profit. Churches would only be able to avoid taxes if they complied with stricter not-for-profit standards with caps on administrative costs.)

I would stick with democracy, but would restrict voting rights to those citizens who took a voting qualification test covering the structure of government. (To avoid discrimination, courses would have to be available free of charge to bring anyone interested up to the point where they could pass the test.)

I would also establish a nationwide public schools network funded entirely by the federal government and inspected to maintain national standards everywhere in the country (even West Virginia). Private schools and schooling would be forbidden, and every pupil would be required to attend the public schools. The power of local communities to influence curriculum would be eliminated.

I would not go with free-market capitalism as it is currently practiced. I would put tariffs on imports from countries that do not maintain the same environmental and worker safety standards as my ideal country. For this purpose, it would, unfortunately, be necessary to set up a department which worked together with other countries to determine their compliance with environmental and worker safety standards in order to determine the tariffs for their imports. The tariff system should give an advantage to countries with safety and environmental standards that meet or exceed the standards of my ideal country. Countries with very low environmental or worker safety standards would be penalized using tariffs, making their products less competitive. The idea being to establish real, fair competition.

I would have no problem implementing a constitution pretty much in the form that it exists in the U.S.A.

[Prozerran]

My first requirement would be to make the society secular. Only when all are equal under a set of logical secular principles would it be possible to have anything like freedom of religion (or freedom of lack thereof) without excluding or favoring any group. (And all organizations and companies that make a profit would be taxed on that profit. Churches would only be able to avoid taxes if they complied with stricter not-for-profit standards with caps on administrative costs.)

I think you're jumping a little further ahead of the discussion question than I originally intended to extend it, but this is okay. I don't have a big problem with making all society secular, but to be a devil's advocate, without some form of moral belief system (i.e. religion) to serve as a philosophical justification of legal imposition, what sustains the law or the obligation to abide by the law? Just curious. I know our law has, as a basis of justification, the religious morality of Christian doctrine. So, I'm interested in how your secular society will, first, all agree to be secular, and second, agree to abide by secular laws.

I would stick with democracy, but would restrict voting rights to those citizens who took a voting qualification test covering the structure of government. (To avoid discrimination, courses would have to be available free of charge to bring anyone interested up to the point where they could pass the test.)

I would not stick with democracy as it is practiced today. I have reasons why that I will explain after I've heard response from more people.

I would also establish a nationwide public schools network funded entirely by the federal government and inspected to maintain national standards everywhere in the country (even West Virginia). Private schools and schooling would be forbidden, and every pupil would be required to attend the public schools. The power of local communities to influence curriculum would be eliminated.

This already exists, and the curriculum of public schools is handed down directly from the Federal level. Are you saying that you would change something, or would you re-establish the system that already exists?

I would not go with free-market capitalism as it is currently practiced. I would put tariffs on imports from countries that do not maintain the same environmental and worker safety standards as my ideal country. For this purpose, it would, unfortunately, be necessary to set up a department which worked together with other countries to determine their compliance with environmental and worker safety standards in order to determine the tariffs for their imports. The tariff system should give an advantage to countries with safety and environmental standards that meet or exceed the standards of my ideal country. Countries with very low environmental or worker safety standards would be penalized using tariffs, making their products less competitive. The idea being to establish real, fair competition.

This is going well outside of the scope I had in mind, and it doesn't seem that I have been clear enough with my initial post - my apologies for that - I speak of a catastrophic loss of life so severe that it leaves only smaller populations (not larger than a township or a group of, say, 100 people or less per area) scattered about across the world and even across countries. In effect, I'm asking that with all the scattered groups of people around all of the world (presumably with limited communication and technology), you are nominated/elected/asked to organize a society within your group.

From there, you may want to ask how you organize the society, and how do you take part in organizing all civilization from that point on? Do you push for a larger government umbrella or world order, or do you focus on leading your group in isolation. How do you proceed if you're given this kind of "reset button" on the world? Do you implement an economy, or do you have a different system of exchange in mind? Is there a necessity for such a system to exist at all? There are so many more questions I could ask, but I guess what I'm asking for is to cherry pick what you would keep from our society as it exists and what you would do away with for something completely different.

I would have no problem implementing a constitution pretty much in the form that it exists in the U.S.A.

What would you keep and what would you be rid of? There are constitutional amendments galore. Surely you can think of something that doesn't belong or something that necessarily MUST be a part of any organized society...

[Oblongato]

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I think you're jumping a little further ahead of the discussion question than I originally intended to extend it, but this is okay. I don't have a big problem with making all society secular, but to be a devil's advocate, without some form of moral belief system (i.e. religion) to serve as a philosophical justification of legal imposition, what sustains the law or the obligation to abide by the law? Just curious. I know our law has, as a basis of justification, the religious morality of Christian doctrine. So, I'm interested in how your secular society will, first, all agree to be secular, and second, agree to abide by secular laws.

Sorry I should have worded more carefully. I would establish a secular system of government, as should theoretically exist today in the U.S., leaving all citizens free to practice religion or not within the boundaries of secular law. Whether or not the legal basis of the U.S. Constitution is Christianity or not is irrelevant. These were the basic principles established as ground rules for the society, and they form a constant basis under which anyone can practice any religion (or not) within those boundaries. The principles adopted as the basis of the Constitution, however, did not originate in Christianity, but rather were present in many societies long before Christianity. The bible was simply one source in which a set of existing principles was collected.

As for an imposed moral system, I believe that all individuals develop their own moral system. As long as they stay within the bounds of society's laws, there should be no problem regardless of what system they develop.

I would not stick with democracy as it is practiced today. I have reasons why that I will explain after I've heard response from more people.

Looking forward to your comments.

This already exists, and the curriculum of public schools is handed down directly from the Federal level. Are you saying that you would change something, or would you re-establish the system that already exists?

Well, theoretically, maybe, but the state and local departments of education still have an inordinate amount of power to, for example, choose textbooks. I would put these decisions at the national level, the ideal being an education that is virtually identical, at least in its core elements, for all citizens. This should form the basis of a cultural commonality that is currently being lost in the U.S., bit by bit.

This is going well outside of the scope I had in mind, and it doesn't seem that I have been clear enough with my initial post - my apologies for that - I speak of a catastrophic loss of life so severe that it leaves only smaller populations (not larger than a township or a group of, say, 100 people or less per area) scattered about across the world and even across countries. In effect, I'm asking that with all the scattered groups of people around all of the world (presumably with limited communication and technology), you are nominated/elected/asked to organize a society within your group.

Ah... I assumed with a population of over 6 billion that you were talking about pockets of millions. The size of a society would naturally make a critical difference. A society of less than 100 or so would have a completely different structure. Then it would depend on how much technology remained. If there was still technology available, a top priority would be establishing a system that would allow it to be used and, further, to increase the population as rapidly as possible in order to increase efficiency and get to the point where new technology, necessarily more primitive, could be produced.

From there, you may want to ask how you organize the society, and how do you take part in organizing all civilization from that point on? Do you push for a larger government umbrella or world order, or do you focus on leading your group in isolation. How do you proceed if you're given this kind of "reset button" on the world? Do you implement an economy, or do you have a different system of exchange in mind? Is there a necessity for such a system to exist at all? There are so many more questions I could ask, but I guess what I'm asking for is to cherry pick what you would keep from our society as it exists and what you would do away with for something completely different.

Cooperation improves efficiency, so the more groups that could be collected under an umbrella, the better the chances of survival in the face of challenges from more isolated groups without the capacity for efficient production etc. But the things I would cherry pick are in my previous post, at least indirectly. Societal cohesion that transcends boundaries of religion, race, sex etc. through common education. Decision making by an educated populace. Priority of individual rights.

What would you keep and what would you be rid of? There are constitutional amendments galore. Surely you can think of something that doesn't belong or something that necessarily MUST be a part of any organized society...

I think any constitution must be amended to adapt to modern circumstances. This, however, should be difficult, and possible only in limited measure. There is actually little I would change about the current American constitution and the way the battle over its interpretation is carried out. I consider the battle over interpretation of the constitution to be a necessary constant in any government.

[GroG]

First, depending on the size of our region, I'd find out everyone's special skills so that we could continue to pass down these skills to each other instead of losing it when those people die or if they leave. If I have a large region I'd use these groups to open up trade schools, if it's a small area like a community I'd probably just do some sort of apprenticeship program.

Once we have all that figured out, I'd start the rebuilding process, if it was needed. First I'd do an estimate on the "needed", or required repairs in order to have a functioning town, such as plumbing, housing, roads, etc. Then we'd get a time frame in order. I would make sure that each group was putting in the same effort, such as plumbers putting in the same amount of work as the carpenters, road makers, etc. Let's say the estimate was 6 months - after the 6 months and the preparations were complete to resume normality, I'd probably allow these groups to begin opening independent business and/or form schools or whatever they want. So once that initial period was complete to rebuild society's infrastructure, normal business resumes.

Hopefully during that period of time where we rebuilt the town/city/country, we were able to figure out a currency and a taxation system - if it was deemed necessary. I'd probably lead the town in the initial rebuild process, but push to have people voted into leadership spots immediately. I think that rebuilding time would be the most fragile and potentially the most dangerous time period, because you'd have a lot of hot tempers, people wanting to do things their way or whatever, plus you really have no huge way of keeping order. So I'd probably do voting a lot on major matters to make sure everyone gets what they want and keep it fair.

I think the apprenticeship/school thing would be important, because you'd have a lot of people either without needed skills, or wanting to help out in things they don't know about, or maybe someone is interesting in a new trade. Getting those people on board would not only help speed up the rebuild process and give those people practical experience, but once the economy starts up you have multiple people immediately available to contract those specialized labor skills out to at different rates and abilities - starting competition back up for the free trade system.

As for specifically what type of country/city/town our area would be, it'd depend on what the people voted for. If they decided they wanted a capitalistic environment, that's what we'd be. If they wanted communist, so be it. I'd just go with the majority. If they decided they didn't want currency, we wouldn't do it.. but we'd need to vote on a working system to exchange products and service.

[SolidSamurai]

My society would be tribal. Not necessarily hunters/gatherers, but you'd have the tribal dudes and then the scientists who are all geneticists trying to make us sexier with the women and stronger in combat.

We'd start with the spear, but then move up to the stick with a guass gun/mini-missile attached.

Alright but seriously, a tribal system would work. Keep it fairly small though. And find a way to freeload off other, larger countries. This is no joke, it could work. No offense, but think of the natives in Canada!

Once we had the technology, our primary education would be focused on the ways of navigating and hacking the internet, so that we can further freeload off other companies. Of course, we'd also have a legion of lawyers.

Also, if you want to try to work with developing a virtual government, try simcountry (http://www.simcountry.com/). It's free for a month. :P